Called-in applications and why no appeal follows

When the Secretary of State calls an application in under section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the application is taken away from the council and determined centrally, and the resulting called in application decision is final. There is no section 78 appeal from it, because there has been no local planning authority decision to appeal against. The only route afterwards is a statutory challenge in the High Court within six weeks, on legal grounds rather than planning merits. That single fact should shape how a developer approaches the inquiry, because the inquiry is the last opportunity to argue the planning case at all.

What triggers a call in

Two mechanisms lead to central determination, and they are often confused.

The first is a direction under section 77 requiring the application to be referred to the Secretary of State instead of being dealt with by the authority. This can follow a request from an objector, a Member of Parliament, a statutory body or the authority itself, or it can be initiated by the department.

The second is the consultation requirement placed on authorities before granting permission for certain categories of development, currently set out in the Town and Country Planning (Consultation) (England) Direction 2021. Where a council is minded to approve development falling within one of those categories, including some Green Belt development, playing field loss and large retail outside a town centre, it must notify the Secretary of State and wait. That notification is frequently the moment a call in is considered.

Alongside both sits the holding direction. Article 31 of the Development Management Procedure Order 2015 allows the Secretary of State to direct that an application not be determined for a period, which freezes the council's decision while the department decides whether to intervene. A holding direction is not a call in. It is a pause, and it ends either with the direction lapsing or with a section 77 direction.

The published criteria for intervention

The policy on call in has been consistent for over two decades. Ministers intervene only where planning issues of more than local importance are involved. The published examples include conflict with national policy on important matters, effects well beyond the immediate locality, substantial regional or national controversy, major architectural or urban design issues, and the interests of national security or of foreign governments.

The practical consequence is that most requests fail. A vocal local campaign is not a reason to call in, and neither is a disagreement about the weight given to a local plan policy. Where a scheme touches a national designation, a nationally significant heritage asset or a question of national policy interpretation, the prospects of intervention are real.

If you are resisting a call in request, address the criteria directly and say why the issues are local. If you are making one, do the same in reverse. Submissions that recite local objections without engaging with the criteria are not persuasive.

Procedure once an application is called in

Section 77 requires the applicant and the authority to be given an opportunity of appearing before and being heard by a person appointed by the Secretary of State. In practice that means a local inquiry, run under the inquiries procedure rules, with an inspector presiding.

The structure is familiar to anyone who has done a major appeal inquiry.

1. The Planning Inspectorate issues a start letter and a timetable, and in many cases a pre-inquiry note identifying the main issues.
2. The applicant and the authority exchange statements of case.
3. Other parties may apply to be recognised as full parties with the right to be heard and to cross-examine.
4. A statement of common ground is prepared, which saves inquiry time and is worth investing in.
5. Proofs of evidence and summaries are exchanged, followed by rebuttals where permitted.
6. The inquiry sits, with evidence tested in cross-examination, round-table sessions on conditions and obligations, and closings.
7. The inspector makes a site visit, accompanied where the parties request it.

One difference from an ordinary appeal matters a great deal. The authority is a party, not the decision-maker, and it may support the application. A called-in scheme where the council is in favour produces an inquiry in which the opposition comes from third parties, and the applicant should expect to carry more of the evidential burden than usual.

The inspector's report and recommendation

The inspector does not decide. They write a report setting out the facts, the cases of the parties, their conclusions and a recommendation, and send it to the Secretary of State.

The decision letter that eventually issues adopts, modifies or departs from that recommendation. Departures happen and they must be reasoned: where the Secretary of State disagrees with the inspector on a matter of fact or takes into account new evidence, the parties must be given the chance to comment before the decision is made.

Timing is the hard part. There is no statutory deadline for the decision after the inspector reports, and periods of several months are normal. Build that into the programme and into any option agreement or funding arrangement, because an expiry date calculated on an eight or thirteen week determination period will be long gone.

The reasoning in these decisions carries real weight in later cases, and the practical use of them is covered in using appeal decisions in a planning application. Where the issue is heritage harm, the structure of the statutory balance is set out in heritage harm refusals and the statutory balance.

Participation by the authority and third parties

Third parties have a stronger position at a called-in inquiry than at most appeals, because the issues that prompted the call in are usually theirs.

A party recognised as a full participant under the inquiries procedure rules can serve a statement of case, call witnesses, cross-examine and make closing submissions. Others may still appear and be heard at the inspector's discretion, which in practice means a slot to speak rather than a right to test the evidence. The practical limits on third-party involvement in someone else's appeal apply with the same logic here.

For the applicant, that means preparing for cross-examination by people who know the site in detail and who have no fee pressure to settle. Two habits help. Agree as much as possible with the council in the statement of common ground, so that the contested ground is narrow. And prepare the technical witnesses for questioning by non-lawyers, which is a different experience from counsel's cross-examination and often more penetrating on local detail.

Costs applications are possible where a party has behaved unreasonably, and they are rare. Do not plan on recovering costs.

Challenging the resulting decision

The decision is challenged by application to the High Court under section 288 of the 1990 Act within six weeks of the date of the decision. The grounds are legal: that the decision was outside the powers of the Act, or that a relevant requirement was not complied with and the applicant's interests were substantially prejudiced.

What that excludes is the merits. A court will not substitute its own planning judgement for the Secretary of State's, however finely balanced the case. What it will look at is whether the decision maker misunderstood a policy, failed to take a material consideration into account, gave inadequate reasons, or departed from the inspector's findings without giving the parties a chance to respond.

The six-week period is strict and runs from the date of the decision. Diary it on the day the decision arrives.

A holding direction or a decision to call in can be challenged by judicial review, though the courts give the Secretary of State wide latitude on whether the criteria are met, and the practical answer is usually to prepare for the inquiry rather than to litigate the direction.

Programme effect on a major scheme

Add a year, and treat that as optimistic. A realistic sequence from the holding direction to the decision letter runs through the direction, the start letter and timetable, statements of case, evidence exchange, a sitting inquiry of one to several weeks, the report, and then the decision.

Three things reduce the damage. Keep the evidence base current, because technical reports go stale and a transport assessment with three-year-old counts invites criticism. Keep the section 106 heads of terms drafted and the deed close to engrossment, so the decision is not followed by months of negotiation. And keep the planning case documented from the start: a thorough planning statement prepared for the original application is the foundation the proofs of evidence are built on, and rewriting the policy case eighteen months later is slower than updating it.

See which supporting documents a major application needs by browsing the report categories and starting a draft.

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.