Invalid planning application: how to fix it and resubmit

An invalid planning application has not been refused. It has not been registered at all, so the determination period in Article 34 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 has never started, and no case officer has picked it up. The validation team is holding your submission until the missing item arrives. Everything downstream, the 21-day publicity period, the consultee responses, the committee slot, moves back by however long you take to answer.

The fix is almost always administrative rather than about the merits of the scheme. Knowing which requirement has been cited, and whether the council is entitled to ask for it, decides whether you spend an afternoon or a month on this.

What the notice is actually telling you

Section 327A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 stops a local planning authority from entertaining an application that does not comply with the requirements imposed by or under the Act. A validation officer who writes to say your application cannot be registered is applying a duty, not exercising discretion.

Those requirements come from two places. The national requirements sit in section 62 of the 1990 Act and Article 7 of the DMPO 2015: the standard application form, the correct fee, the ownership certificate, a location plan, a site plan, and a design and access statement where Article 9 applies. The local requirements sit in the council's own validation list, made under section 62(4A) and (4B) of the Act.

The second category is where arguments start. Planning Practice Guidance on making an application is clear that a local list request only stands if the list was published within the previous two years and the document sought is reasonable, having regard to the nature and scale of what is proposed. If the officer has asked for something that is not on a current published list, or that plainly has no bearing on a two-storey rear extension, reply in writing and ask them to point you to the entry. That request is usually settled in a day.

The items that most often hold a submission

Validation refusals cluster around a short list, and it barely changes between authorities:

• The fee is wrong, or was paid for the wrong description of development.
• The ownership certificate is signed A when part of the access strip belongs to someone else.
• The red line does not include the whole of the access to a public highway.
• Drawings carry no scale bar, no north point, or show proposed elevations without the existing ones alongside.
• No design and access statement where the site is in a conservation area and the proposal is one or more dwellings.
• No statement about biodiversity net gain.
• The CIL additional information form is missing in a charging authority's area.

The biodiversity item catches small developers most often now. Since 12 February 2024 for major development and 2 April 2024 for small sites, an application for planning permission in England has to say whether the applicant believes the biodiversity gain condition applies, and where it does, give the pre-development biodiversity value and supporting plans. That statement is part of the application, so its absence is a validation matter rather than something to settle later with the case officer. Councils differ on how much metric detail they want at this stage, which is exactly the sort of thing a current local list should answer.

Trees are the other repeat offender. If the site has a protected tree on or beside it, most local lists ask for a survey to BS 5837:2012 before registration, and checking the position early is worth more than arguing about it later. Our guide to how to check a Tree Preservation Order and apply for works sets out where the register sits and what the council does with the application.

How long the council will hold it

There is no statutory period for this. The application sits outside the system until it is valid, and the eight or 13 weeks only begin the day after the authority receives everything it is entitled to require.

Councils set their own holding period in published validation guidance, and they do not all use the same one. Rather than assume, ask the validation officer for the date on which they will return the application if nothing arrives, and get it in an email. That date is the one to work your programme around, particularly if the missing item is a survey with a season attached, such as a bat emergence survey that cannot happen between October and April.

Fees, refunds and whether to resubmit

Planning fees are set by the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012 as amended, and have been indexed annually since April 2025. Check the current figure on gov.uk before you pay rather than reusing a number from an earlier scheme.

Refund practice on a returned application is a matter for the individual authority, and some deduct an administration charge. Ask before you withdraw anything, because withdrawing and resubmitting can cost more than fixing what is already lodged.

Two fee rules are worth holding in mind. Regulation 9 of the 2012 Regulations gives one further application of the same character on the same site, free of fee, within 12 months of a refusal or of the withdrawal of an earlier application. Whether an application that was never validated counts as an earlier application for that purpose is not obvious, so confirm it with the authority before relying on it. And regulation 9A, the planning guarantee, refunds the fee where a non-EIA application is not determined within 26 weeks. That clock also runs from valid receipt, which is one more reason to close out validation quickly.

Red lines, blue lines and ownership certificates

The red line shows the application site, and it has to include every part of the land needed to carry out the development, including the access to the public highway. Land elsewhere that the applicant owns or controls goes inside a blue line. A red line drawn tightly around the plot, with a shared driveway left outside it, is one of the commonest reasons a validation officer sends a scheme back.

Certificates follow from section 65 of the 1990 Act and Article 13 of the DMPO 2015. Certificate A says the applicant owned the whole site for the 21 days before the application. Certificate B applies where other owners are known and have been served notice, C where some are unknown after reasonable enquiry, and D where none can be identified. If any part of the land has been an agricultural tenancy, the agricultural holdings certificate has to be completed too.

Get this wrong and it is more than a delay. Issuing a certificate that is false or misleading, knowingly or recklessly, is an offence under section 65(6). It is also a standing ground of challenge for a neighbour who was never notified, which matters if you later need to prove the development was lawful. The route for that is a certificate application, and our note on lawful development certificates explains what evidence carries weight.

Cutting the risk on the next submission

Work through this before you upload anything:

1. Download the council's validation list from its own website and check the publication date on it.
2. Price the fee from the current national schedule for the exact description of development you are using.
3. Confirm the red line against the title plan and the access, then set the certificate to match.
4. List the technical documents the local list triggers for your constraints, and start any seasonal survey first.
5. Name every file the way the list asks, since automated portals reject on file naming more often than people expect.

On a scheme approaching ten units, add the obligations question to that list, because heads of terms are easier to agree before submission than during a stalled determination. Our walkthrough of section 106 heads of terms on a nine-unit scheme covers what usually lands on the table.

If you are unsure which technical documents your site actually triggers, the full index of report types by category is a useful cross-check against the council's list, and you can enter the postcode on PlanScope to see which reports the site's constraints are likely to bring into play before you commit to consultants.

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.