Call-in under section 77 and what triggers it

A called-in planning application is taken out of the council's hands and decided by the Secretary of State instead. The power sits in section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and it is used sparingly: the published position is that planning decisions should be made locally unless the application raises issues of more than local importance. For a developer promoting 10 to 100 units on an allocated site, the realistic risk of a planning application call in is low. For a 500-unit scheme in the Green Belt with a Member of Parliament writing to the department, it is not.

The practical consequence is programme. A called-in application loses its statutory determination period, picks up an inquiry, and is decided months later than it would otherwise have been. Understanding what attracts the power, and what does not, lets you price that risk before you commit to a planning strategy.

What happens to an application once it is called in

Section 77 allows the Secretary of State to direct that a particular application be referred to them rather than determined by the local planning authority. The council keeps the file, carries out publicity and consultation, and prepares its own case, but it no longer issues the decision.

Two directions usually arrive in sequence. First comes a holding direction under article 31 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015, telling the authority not to grant permission while the department considers whether to intervene. That direction can sit over an application for weeks without anything else happening. Then either the holding direction is lifted and the council decides, or a call-in direction follows.

Once called in, the eight-week and 13-week determination periods stop applying. There is no deemed refusal to appeal against, because the decision-maker has changed rather than failed to decide. The application cannot be withdrawn from the process either, though it can be withdrawn altogether.

The criteria the department applies

The call-in policy is set out in written ministerial statements rather than in the Act. The test, in substance, is whether the application raises planning issues of more than local importance. The published indicators include:

• conflict with national policy on matters of importance
• a wide effect beyond the immediate locality
• substantial regional or national controversy
• significant architectural or urban design issues
• the interests of national security or of a foreign government

None of these is a trigger in the sense that a threshold is. They are reasons the department may act, applied with a strong presumption against intervention. Housing numbers alone rarely qualify. Green Belt release, a scheme that cuts across a statutory consultee's objection, or a proposal that would set a pattern for a much wider area are the cases that get looked at properly.

It is worth separating this from the Mayor of London's powers. For applications referable under the Town and Country Planning (Mayor of London) Order 2008, the Mayor can direct refusal or take over the application as the local planning authority. That is a different statutory route with its own thresholds, and it operates far more often than section 77 does.

Who can ask for a call-in, and what that achieves

Anyone can write to the Secretary of State asking for an application to be called in. In practice the requests come from objector groups, parish councils, Members of Parliament, amenity societies and occasionally from the local planning authority itself when members are uncomfortable with a recommendation. Requests go to the department's casework unit, and the department is not obliged to respond with reasons.

A request does not stop the council deciding unless a holding direction is issued. This matters tactically. If a well-organised objector group has written in and the authority is minded to approve, the council may hold off issuing the decision notice voluntarily to avoid the embarrassment of granting permission and then being told to stop. There is nothing in the legislation requiring that pause, and a planning committee resolution to grant followed by a quick decision notice is sometimes the end of the matter.

Timescales and cost

Budget for an inquiry. Called-in applications are almost always determined following a public inquiry held by an inspector, who then writes a report recommending a decision to the Secretary of State. The procedure follows the Town and Country Planning (Inquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2000, with statements of case, proofs of evidence, a pre-inquiry timetable and cross-examination.

The honest answer on duration is that it varies widely and the department does not publish a target for section 77 cases. Assume the gap between the call-in direction and the decision letter is measured in many months, not weeks, and that the inspector's report adds a further period before the Secretary of State signs the decision.

Costs fall where they lie. Each party funds its own case, and an award is only available where a party has behaved unreasonably and caused another party wasted expense. A developer facing a called-in application is funding counsel, expert witnesses and the evidence base that each proof of evidence rests on, and the report types the scheme needs will already be on the file. The evidence itself is usually the same evidence the application needed, updated and hardened for cross-examination, so the marginal cost sits in advocacy and witness time rather than in new survey work. The six tests a planning condition has to meet matter more here than usual, because a schedule of conditions negotiated with the authority will be examined line by line at the inquiry.

Recovered appeals as the companion power

The mirror image of call-in is appeal recovery. Most section 78 appeals are decided by an inspector under delegated powers. Under Schedule 6 to the 1990 Act the Secretary of State can direct that a particular appeal be transferred back for their own decision, and the published recovery criteria have covered categories such as major Green Belt proposals, traveller sites, certain renewable energy schemes and proposals of more than local significance. Those criteria are revised by written ministerial statement, so check the current statement rather than relying on an older list.

The procedural effect of recovery is smaller than call-in. The inquiry or hearing runs as it would have done, and the inspector still hears the evidence. What changes is that the inspector reports rather than decides, which adds time and moves the final judgement into the political arena.

Reducing the risk

You cannot make a scheme call-in proof, but you can remove the hooks:

1. Resolve statutory consultee objections before committee. An unresolved objection from the Environment Agency, Natural England or National Highways is the single most common reason a request for intervention is taken seriously.
2. Keep the development plan argument clean. Where a scheme relies on the tilted balance because policies are out of date, expect that argument to be contested, and make sure the saved policies that still apply to the site are addressed on their own terms.
3. Treat heritage and Green Belt harm as decision issues rather than mitigation issues, and evidence them fully at application stage.
4. Engage early and visibly with the community. A documented Statement of Community Involvement does not remove opposition, but it removes the complaint that nobody was consulted.
5. Watch the outline and reserved matters split. Deferring too much to reserved matters invites the criticism that the application cannot properly be judged, which feeds a more than local importance argument.

Where a call-in request is already in, the useful work is factual. Write to the casework unit yourself, setting out the development plan position, the consultee position and the local decision-making history. The department is deciding whether the issues really are more than local, and a short accurate note on why they are not is more persuasive than silence.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.