Planning Appeals

The Planning Appeals process is open to anyone who has applied for planning permission but is unhappy with the resulting decision.

If you have sought permission to carry out works to your property and your application isn’t decided within a set period, or you get a decision from your local council that you disagree with, you have a right to appeal. You also have the right to appeal if you have been served with an Enforcement Notice.

You can appeal a decision made by a local authority on a planning application if you disagree with it or if the application wasn’t determined within eight weeks (for a typical householder development) or 13 weeks for major developments.

The applicant of any type of planning application is usually entitled to appeal the decision of the local planning authority, this is usually where an application is refused by the local planning authority but there are also other rights of appeal in respect to other matters.

Only applicants or their agents can appeal, there are no rights of appeal for third parties.  So, if you have objected to a planning application and it is approved by the local planning authority then you cannot appeal that decision.

All appeals are overseen by the Planning Inspectorate on behalf of the Welsh Government which is located at Crown Buildings, Cathays Park, Cardiff.  The Planning Inspectorate processes all appeals lodged against planning application refusals, enforcement notice appeals and non-determined applications within a statutory period.  A small percentage of appeals are decided by Welsh Ministers, but these tend to be very large of contentious proposals.

Most appeals are decided by the written representations method. With this method the planning inspector considers written evidence from the appellant, local planning authority and anyone else that has an interest in the appeal.  The development site is also likely to be inspected.  

Once your appeal has been submitted, it will be checked to make sure that everything is in order. The Case Officer dealing with your appeal will inform you of what is required and when you need to do it.

If you have applied to your local planning authority for planning permission for a small-scale development to an existing property but are unhappy with the decision, or the lack of a decision then you can apply for a Householder Appeal.  These appeals (together with minor commercial appeals) have a shorter timescale than other planning appeals and you will need to submit the appeal within 12 weeks from the date of the local authority decision notice (6 months for all other types of appeal).

In all cases, before you decide to make an appeal, it is advised that you enter into discussions with your local planning authority as changes to your original application could resolve the local planning authority reasons for refusal and a further application may resolve issues without the need to make an appeal.

There is a strict process and timeframe for the submission and processing of appeals and further information can be found via the Welsh Government website which provides further information on the appeals process.  https://gov.wales/topics/planning/appeals/?lang=en

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