Written representations appeals: Part 1 and Part 2

 

Most planning appeals in England are decided on paper. Nobody meets, nobody gives evidence out loud, and an Inspector reads the file and makes a decision. That route is called written representations, and it is by far the most common way an appeal ends.

The Inspector will usually also view the appeal site. Our separate guide explains what happens at a planning appeal site visit, including unaccompanied visits, access-only visits and accompanied visits.

Written representations have long used Part 1 and Part 2 procedures. What changed on 1st April 2026 was the reach of Part 1: for most section 78(1) appeals relating to applications made on or after that date, the expedited Part 1 route is now the starting point. Which procedure you get matters enormously, because Part 1 is designed around the material that was already before the council, subject only to limited exceptions.

This page explains which procedure applies to you, what each one allows, the narrow circumstances in which new material can still get in, and which appeals are outside this system altogether.

 

Which set of rules applies to you

 

Before anything else, work out which system you are in, because the answer is not what most people assume.

For an ordinary section 78 appeal, the date that matters is the date the application was made, not the date you appeal. Advertisement consent appeals are the exception: for those, the 2026 written-representations trigger is the date the application was determined. So, for ordinary section 78 appeals:

• application made on or after 1st April 2026, use the current post-April procedural guide, under which most section 78(1) appeals start in Part 1
• application made on or before 31st March 2026, use the earlier procedural guide, which also contains Part 1 and Part 2 but applies them to a narrower range of appeals

Both systems are running side by side and will do for some time yet. The government maintains a separate procedural guide for each, so check which one covers you before you do anything else.

 

Part 1, the expedited procedure

 

Part 1 is now the default, and it covers appeals against:

• refusal of planning permission
• a grant subject to conditions you object to
• refusal of prior approval
• refusal of advertisement consent
• refusal of an application to approve reserved matters
• refusal of a section 73 application to vary or remove conditions
• refusal of a section 73A application for development already carried out
• permission in principle, or refusal of technical details consent

Under Part 1 the Inspector considers only the application the council determined, including your supporting evidence, your plans and any comments from neighbours, together with the decision notice, the committee minutes and officer report, your appeal form, and the council’s questionnaire. That is ordinarily the material the Inspector works from, subject to the limited material-change exception explained below.

There is no statement of case. The appeal form lets you explain why you disagree with the decision, but that is not an opening to introduce fresh arguments or evidence, and anything new may simply be disregarded. The council is in exactly the same position, as its officer report, committee minutes and decision notice are its case.

This is also why what happens at application stage matters so much more than it used to. Comments made during publicity and neighbour consultation are passed to the Inspector, and neighbours get no second opportunity to make representations. Our guide to objecting to a planning appeal sets out what that means if you are the neighbour rather than the applicant.

 

Part 2, the fuller procedure

 

Under the post-April 2026 guide, Part 2 includes:

• non-determination appeals, where the council failed to decide in time
• listed building consent appeals
• discontinuance notice appeals

Appeals relating to applications made on or before 31st March 2026 do not automatically become Part 2. They follow the earlier procedural guide, where some appeal types use Part 1 and others use Part 2.

Under Part 2 you submit a full statement of case with your appeal, the council responds at five weeks, interested people can comment, and there is a final round of comments at seven weeks. Appeals against refusal of a biodiversity gain plan are technically eligible for Part 1 but will usually be moved across to Part 2.

The Inspectorate can move an appeal from Part 1 to Part 2 if it wishes, or send it to a hearing or an inquiry instead. If your appeal is transferred from Part 1 to Part 2 you will usually get just two weeks to produce a statement of case, so it pays to have thought about it in advance rather than starting from a blank page.

 

Is there any way to get new evidence in?

 

Very little, and you should not plan around it. Under Part 1 the Inspectorate may exceptionally accept new material where there has been a genuine material change of circumstance since the decision, for example:

• a material and relevant change in the development plan or in national policy, including emerging policy
• a material and relevant court judgment
• a requirement for an Environmental Statement following a screening direction
• a relevant decision on another application or appeal

That is the list. It does not include forgetting to commission a flood risk assessment. If a technical report or a change to the scheme would overcome the reasons for refusal, a fresh application is usually the safer route. Part 1 is not designed to let an appellant repair an application with material that should have been before the council or to redesign the scheme at appeal.

 

What this does not cover

 

Part 1 and Part 2 do not between them cover every appeal, and this catches people out because the labels are used loosely elsewhere.

Appeals about a Certificate of Lawfulness are outside this system altogether. They are neither Part 1 nor Part 2. That kind of appeal is made under a different section of the Act from the ordinary planning appeal, and the regulations creating the Part 1 and Part 2 split simply do not reach it.

Two things follow:

• the Planning Inspectorate has a separate current procedural guide for lawful development certificate appeals, rather than using the ordinary planning appeals guide
• the April 2026 Part 1 restriction does not apply, although the certificate appeal guide still tells appellants not to hold evidence back deliberately and allows new material to be managed so that no party is prejudiced

That matters a great deal in practice, because an appeal about a certificate is usually an argument about what actually happened on the ground and when, and evidence is the whole case. See our pages on the Certificate of Lawfulness of Existing Use or Development and the Certificate of Lawfulness of Proposed Use.

Enforcement notice appeals are also outside it. They run under their own separate regulations, and are dealt with in our planning enforcement section rather than here.

 

Is written representations the right route for you?

 

For most householders and small businesses, yes. It is quicker and cheaper than the alternatives, you do not have to take a day off to attend anything, and the vast majority of appeals are perfectly capable of being decided on the documents.

Where it is a poor fit is where the disagreement turns on something that really needs to be talked through, or where the council’s evidence needs testing rather than simply contradicting on paper. In those cases a hearing or an inquiry may serve you better, though the choice is not entirely yours.

The honest question to ask first is a different one. If your application failed because essential material was missing rather than because the council disagreed with the case you actually put, an appeal is usually a poor way to repair it. A fresh application will often be the safer route. See our guide to what to do when a planning application is refused for how to tell the two situations apart.

 

What it costs

 

There is no fee to make a planning appeal, whichever procedure you end up in, and each party meets its own expenses.

The new system does create one specific costs risk worth knowing about. Putting evidence in at appeal that could have been produced at application stage may expose you to an award of costs, and the guidance singles out exactly the case where an application was refused because information was missing and that information then turns up at appeal. The fee you paid the council for the application itself is separate, so see our guide to planning fees.

 

If the appeal is refused

 

An Inspector’s decision on a written representations appeal is final as far as the planning system is concerned. There is no further appeal to anybody.

The only route beyond it is a challenge in the High Court, which is not a second go at the planning merits. It looks at whether the decision was made lawfully, and it runs on a short clock of its own. See our page on judicial review and section 288 challenges.

For the deadline to lodge your appeal in the first place, see planning appeal timescales, and for the process as a whole see our guide to planning appeals.

See also our guide to the types of planning application.

 

 

Written representations relevant legislation

 

Links below go to legislation.gov.uk. Always check the “Changes to Legislation” panel at the top of each provision, because amendments are often listed there before they are written into the text.

• Town and Country Planning (Appeals) (Written Representations Procedure) (England) Regulations 2009 (SI 2009/452), the written representations procedure; Part 1 and Part 2 pre-date 2026, with the 2026 amendments substantially expanding the expedited Part 1 route
• SI 2026/122, which replaced regulation 3 of the 2009 Regulations and sets out which appeals fall into Part 1 and which into Part 2
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 78, the right of appeal against refusal, conditions or non-determination
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 195, appeal against refusal of a Certificate of Lawfulness, which sits outside the Part 1 and Part 2 split
• Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, section 20, the right of appeal on listed building consent

Other Planning Appeal Sections

 

Written Representations Page Updated: 29th August 2026