Inquiries Review: notification of inquiry as preferred procedure now required 10 days prior to appeal submission

At the Planning Summit held recently the Minister for Housing, Kit Malthouse, endorsed the Planning Inspectorate’s Action Plan to implement the recommendations of the Inquiries Review.

 As the inspectorate has previously announced, it has begun implementing some of the recommendations: this update summarises the latest steps.

Recommendation 3 advises streamlining the procedure used by appellants when they request an inquiry, recommending that they notify the relevant local planning authority (LPA) at least 10 working days in advance of the submission of the appeal, ensuring that they also share the notification with the inspectorate at the same time.

With immediate effect, you should notify the Local Planning Authority and also the Planning Inspectorate by email: inquiryappeals@planninginspectorate.gov.uk, at least 10 working days before submitting your planning appeal.

In the notification, we request that you include:

• appellant name;
• the Local Planning Authority that the appeal will be against;
• reason for appeal;
• site address;
• description of development;
• planning application number; and
• likely submission date of appeal.

We have also asked local planning authorities to provide this instruction to applicants in the decision notification.

For clarity, this only applies to planning appeals that follow the inquiry procedure.

(Published by the Planning Inspectorate: 14 June 2019)