The appeal bundle and the core documents list

The core documents list is the agreed shelf of material the inspector will read, and getting it right is worth more than another five pages of proof. For a planning appeal at inquiry or hearing, the planning appeal core documents are the policies, guidance, application material and decisions that both parties accept are relevant, compiled once, paginated once, and indexed so that any cross reference in a proof can be found in seconds. It is not a place to hide new evidence, and an inspector who cannot find a document you rely on will give it the weight of something they have not read.

What the bundle is for

An inquiry bundle exists so that four or five people reading in different rooms are looking at the same page number. That is its whole function. The proofs of evidence carry the argument, the statement of case sets the issues, and the core documents supply the underlying material each of those refers to.

Under the inquiries procedure rules, proofs of evidence are due four weeks before the inquiry opens, and any proof longer than 1,500 words needs a summary. The core documents list should be settled by then, because a proof that cites CD/14 when the other side's schedule numbers that document CD/21 wastes inquiry time and irritates everyone.

For a hearing the same discipline applies at smaller scale. For written representations there is usually no formal bundle, though a short schedule of the documents you rely on, with the relevant pages attached, does the same job.

Selecting the documents

Start from the reasons for refusal and work outwards. Every policy cited in a reason goes in, together with the supporting text that explains it. Every document the officer report relied on goes in. Then add what your own case needs, and nothing else.

The material that belongs in a core documents list:

• The application form, certificates and the approved or submitted drawings.
• The officer report and, where the decision went to committee, the minutes and any update sheet.
• The decision notice and the appeal questionnaire with the council's statement.
• Adopted development plan policies relied on by either party, with their supporting text.
• Relevant neighbourhood plan policies, supplementary planning documents and adopted design guidance.
• The current National Planning Policy Framework and the Planning Practice Guidance chapters in play.
• Technical reports submitted with the application, including the Planning Statement and any specialist assessments the reasons for refusal engage with.
• Consultee responses and, where they are part of the case, representations from interested parties.
• Appeal decisions and judgments relied on.

What does not belong: duplicate copies of the same policy in three formats, whole local plans where four policies are in issue, and correspondence that neither party intends to open.

Agree the list with the council before you compile it. A single agreed list, with a single numbering sequence, is worth the two emails it takes.

Pagination and cross referencing

One continuous numbering sequence across the whole bundle, applied to the PDF rather than relying on the original page numbers printed on each document. Original page numbers survive in parallel and confuse everybody, so cite both where you need to: CD/8 page 214 of the bundle, paragraph 6.31 of the document.

Number the documents in a logical order and keep the numbers stable once issued. If a document is added, give it the next number in sequence rather than inserting it as 8a and renumbering downstream. Half the point of an agreed list is that nobody has to check whether their copy matches.

An index at the front, hyperlinked to each document, is now standard. So are bookmarks in the PDF. Both take minutes to produce and save hours across a three-day inquiry.

Policy extracts against whole documents

There is a real tension here. Extracts are usable and full documents are defensible.

The convention that works: include the policy in full, with its supporting text and the relevant part of the reasoned justification, and give the full document in a separate part of the bundle where the plan's structure matters to the argument. Never include a policy as a screenshot of the wording alone, because the supporting text is where the council's interpretation usually lives, and an appellant who omits it invites the suggestion that it was omitted deliberately.

State the plan's adopted name and adoption date on the index entry. Where a plan is at examination, say so, and say what weight you say it carries.

For the Framework, state the edition. The current version was published on 17 August 2026 and is organised by policy codes rather than the paragraph numbers used in the December 2024 and December 2023 editions. Proofs that cite a paragraph number from an older copy of the Framework create an avoidable argument about which text the inspector should be reading.

Appeal decisions relied on

Include the full decision, not a summary and not a paragraph quoted in isolation. Inspectors read the whole thing and they notice when the parts you left out cut against you.

Appeal decisions are indicative of how inspectors have approached an issue rather than binding precedent, so the useful framing is factual similarity: same policy, same designation, comparable scale, and what the inspector said about the specific test in dispute. The approach is set out at more length in our note on using appeal decisions as evidence.

Where a decision has been quashed or is subject to challenge, say so on the index. An undisclosed quashed decision is the kind of thing that turns a costs application from unlikely to arguable.

Late additions

They happen. A consultee responds after proofs are exchanged, a judgment comes out the week before the inquiry, or a policy is adopted mid-timetable.

The mechanics are straightforward:

1. Notify the other party and the case officer at the Inspectorate as soon as you know.
2. Explain why the document could not have been produced earlier.
3. Give it the next core document number and circulate the paginated insert, not a loose email attachment.
4. Be ready to say, at the opening, what you say the document changes.

An inspector will usually admit a document that is new in substance. What attracts adverse comment is material that existed at the proof deadline and was held back, or a "supplementary note" that is really a second proof. Costs can follow unreasonable behaviour in an appeal, and late evidence that causes an adjournment is one of the clearer routes to it.

Digital bundles and the conventions that help

Almost every inquiry now runs on an electronic bundle, often alongside a small paper set for the inspector's site visit.

• One PDF where the total size allows, split into numbered parts where it does not, with the split announced in the index.
• Text-searchable throughout. Scanned drawings and old plan pages need optical character recognition, or the search that everyone relies on silently fails.
• Drawings at a scale that survives printing, with the scale bar legible and the original sheet size noted.
• File names that carry the document number first, so directory order matches bundle order.
• A version number and date on the index, and a short change log if the bundle is reissued.
• Landscape pages rotated the right way up. It sounds trivial and it is the single most common complaint.

Send the final bundle to the Inspectorate and the other party at the same time, and keep the file you sent. If a page is queried three weeks later, you want the version that was served rather than the one on your desktop.

If you are assembling the supporting documents behind a resubmission rather than an appeal, you can browse the 66 PlanScope report types and draft the narrative documents while the technical work runs.

This is general guidance, not legal advice, so check the current Planning Inspectorate procedural guidance and take advice on your own appeal. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.