Citing appeal decisions without overstating them

Citing appeal decisions works when you treat them as indications of how inspectors have reasoned, and fails when you present them as rules. They bind nobody. What the courts have recognised, in North Wiltshire District Council v Secretary of State for the Environment and the line of cases that followed, is that consistency in decision-making is itself a material consideration, so a decision-maker who departs from a previous decision on a materially similar question should explain why.

That is a duty to engage with a decision, not a duty to follow it. The difference is the whole subject.

Why appeal decisions are not binding

An inspector determines an appeal on its own facts, applying the development plan and the material considerations before them. Another inspector, on a different site, with different evidence, is not obliged to reach the same view.

High Court and appellate judgments are different in kind. They interpret the law, and a decision-maker who misapplies an interpretation set out by the courts has erred. Keep the two categories separate in your submissions, and never introduce an inspector's decision with language that implies judicial authority.

The consistency point still has real force. Where a previous appeal decision deals with the same site, the same policy and the same issue, an authority that reaches the opposite conclusion without addressing it is exposed. Where the decision concerns a different site in the same authority under the same policy, the force is weaker but not nothing.

Finding decisions close enough to be comparable

Comparability is a matter of degree, and the honest assessment is usually less favourable than the first search suggests.

Work through five filters before you rely on one.

1. Policy framework. Was it decided under the same adopted plan, the same national framework edition, and before or after any relevant policy change.
2. Designation. The same constraint, at the same level of significance. A National Landscape decision does not transfer to an ordinary countryside site.
3. Scale and type. Similar number of units, similar floorspace, similar use.
4. The issue actually determined. A decision allowed on one main issue says little about a different main issue that was never argued.
5. Evidence before the inspector. A decision turning on unchallenged expert evidence is weaker authority where your case has contrary evidence.

Decisions on the appeal site itself are the strongest material you will find, and the first search should always be the planning history of your own site. A refusal dismissed at appeal two years ago sets the frame for the resubmission whether you cite it or not.

Extracting the reasoning rather than the outcome

The outcome is the least transferable part of a decision. What transfers is method.

Read for how the inspector defined the main issues, what weight they gave to each policy and why, which parts of the evidence they accepted and which they rejected, and what they said about the correct approach to a test. An inspector explaining how they applied a harm test, or what they expected an assessment to demonstrate, is telling you something useful about the next case.

Quote precisely, with the paragraph number, and quote enough of the passage that the meaning survives. Selective quotation is the fastest way to lose credibility with an experienced officer, who will read the decision.

Where the inspector's reasoning supports your method rather than your conclusion, say that. "The inspector accepted that a survey carried out in these conditions was adequate" is a usable point even where the appeal was dismissed on other grounds.

Presenting a decision in a statement of case

Structure the treatment so an officer can check it in two minutes.

Give the appeal reference and the decision date. Describe the site and the proposal in a sentence. State the main issue the decision turned on. Explain, specifically, why it is comparable to your case, addressing policy framework and designation. Quote the passage you rely on with its paragraph number. Then state what you say it shows, in one sentence, without inflation.

Attach the decision in full as an appendix. A cited decision that the reader cannot see invites the assumption that the full text is less helpful than the quotation.

Two or three decisions treated that way are worth more than a schedule of ten. A long list signals that no single decision is close enough, and officers read it that way. The same discipline applies when using appeal decisions as evidence in an application rather than at appeal.

Distinguishing an unhelpful decision

The council will produce decisions too, and the technique for dealing with them is the same one in reverse.

• Identify the factual difference that matters and state it plainly, rather than listing every difference.
• Check whether the policy relied on has since changed, been superseded on adoption of a new plan, or been given different weight.
• Check the evidence position. A decision where the appellant produced no assessment on a point is weak authority against a case where you have.
• Check whether the decision was challenged in the High Court, and whether it was quashed or remitted.
• Where the decision really is against you, deal with it openly and explain why the balance differs here. Ignoring it does not make it go away and it damages everything else you say.

Never assert that a decision is distinguishable without saying how. That is the point at which an officer stops reading your analysis and forms their own.

Policy changes that make a decision stale

National policy has been reissued more than once in recent years, with renumbering in December 2024 and a restructured framework organised by policy code published on 17 August 2026. A decision applying superseded numbering needs translating before it can be used, and a decision turning on a policy test that has since changed may be worthless.

Local change matters as much. Adoption of a new local plan, a changed housing land supply position, a new supplementary planning document or the arrival of mandatory biodiversity net gain can each remove the ground a decision stood on.

State the date of the decision prominently and address staleness before the reader raises it. An advocate who says "this decision predates the current framework, and here is why the reasoning still holds" is far more persuasive than one who leaves the date to be discovered.

How many decisions to cite

Few, and well. Three decisions analysed properly, with the comparability argued and the full text attached, will do more than twelve in a schedule.

There is also a costs dimension. Misrepresenting a decision, or relying on one that has been quashed, is the kind of behaviour that supports an application for an award of costs for unreasonable conduct. Check the status of every decision you cite on the day you cite it. The council will be doing the same, and the appeal questionnaire and the council's statement is where you first see which decisions they intend to rely on.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. A draft can assemble the structure of a statement of case and check its policy coverage, but comparability is a judgement a planner has to make and defend. This is general guidance rather than legal advice, so take professional advice on the conduct of an appeal. Where you are pulling the supporting documents together, the Planning Statement is usually where the appeal analysis lands.