Judicial review for a neighbour: time limits and standing

Six weeks. That is the whole of it, and most neighbours who want to challenge a planning decision find out about the limit in week seven. A judicial review planning decision neighbour challenge must be filed at the Administrative Court not later than six weeks after the grounds first arose, which in practice means six weeks from the day the permission was granted. The court has very little discretion to extend that period in planning cases, and a letter to the council, a complaint to a councillor or a petition does not stop the clock running.

The second thing to understand is what the court is being asked to do. It is not being asked whether the permission was a good idea.

What judicial review can and cannot achieve

Judicial review tests the legality of the decision, not its merits. If the council followed a lawful process, took account of the right considerations and reached a conclusion a reasonable authority could reach, the permission stands even if the court would have decided differently.

The remedy, where a claim succeeds, is normally a quashing order. The permission is set aside and the application goes back to the authority to be decided again, lawfully. It can be granted again. That outcome disappoints a lot of claimants, and it is worth being clear about before anyone spends money.

There is a further filter. Section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 requires the court to refuse relief where it appears highly likely that the outcome for the applicant would not have been substantially different had the conduct complained of not occurred. So a procedural error that made no difference to the decision will not get the permission quashed.

Two different routes exist and they are often confused. A challenge to a council's own grant of permission is a judicial review. A challenge to an inspector's decision on appeal is a statutory review under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Both run to six weeks, and they go to the same court.

The six week limit and when it starts

The grounds first arise when the decision is made, which for a planning permission means the date on the decision notice rather than the date you heard about it or the date the site notice came down.

That catches people in two situations. Where the committee resolved to grant subject to completing a section 106 agreement, the clock runs from the issue of the permission, not the committee date, which can be months later. And where the permission was issued under delegated powers with no committee, there may have been no public announcement at all beyond the entry on the register.

Check the register weekly if an application concerns you. Our note on reading a decision notice as a neighbour sets out what the notice tells you, including the date that matters here.

A pre-action letter does not extend the period. If the six weeks will expire before the council replies, the claim has to be filed anyway and the correspondence continues afterwards.

Standing and sufficient interest

Section 31(3) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 requires a claimant to have a sufficient interest in the matter. For a neighbour this is rarely a problem. Someone who lives next to the site, whose outlook, light or access is affected, and who objected during the consultation, has standing without argument.

Standing becomes a live issue in three situations. Where the claimant has no connection to the area at all. Where a company or association is formed for the purpose of the challenge and has no other substance. And where the claimant did not object and has no obvious interest, which invites the court to ask what the claim is really about.

Having objected is not a legal requirement for standing, but it helps in two ways. It demonstrates interest, and it puts your point in front of the decision-maker, which matters because a ground of challenge based on a consideration nobody raised is harder to run. Whether neighbours get a second chance to comment when plans change is covered in our piece on whether neighbours are reconsulted on amended plans.

Grounds that work, and grounds that do not

The two most common failed grounds are disagreement about weight and disagreement about the planning judgement. Both are for the authority. The grounds that succeed usually involve something the law required and the council did not do: a misinterpretation of a policy, a failure to apply a statutory duty, a consultation that did not comply with the authority's own published arrangements, or a screening decision under the environmental impact assessment regulations that was not properly reasoned.

Read the officer's report line by line against the policies it cites. That is where errors are found, and it costs nothing.

The letter before claim

The pre-action protocol for judicial review expects a letter before claim identifying the decision, the grounds, the relief sought and a date for reply. Send it as early as you can, because in planning cases the six-week limit will usually bite before a reply arrives.

Put four things in it. The decision and its date. Each ground, numbered, with the document and page where the error appears. What you want the council to do, which is normally to agree that the permission should be quashed by consent. And a request for any documents you need, which for planning claims usually means the full officer report, the consultation responses and the screening opinion.

Councils sometimes concede. A consent order quashing the permission costs both sides far less than a hearing, and an authority that recognises a clear error in its own report may prefer to redetermine. It is worth asking plainly.

Costs exposure and the environmental cap

The ordinary rule is that the losing party pays the winner's costs, and a judicial review that reaches a substantive hearing is expensive. Permission is normally decided on the papers first, and a claim refused permission still carries a costs liability, usually limited to the defendant's acknowledgement of service costs.

Many planning challenges qualify as Aarhus Convention claims, which brings a costs cap. For a claim within that regime, the amount recoverable from an individual claimant is capped, as is the amount the claimant can recover from the defendant. The figures are set in the Civil Procedure Rules and have been adjusted over time, so check the current ones rather than relying on a figure from an older note. Claiming the cap requires a statement in the claim form that the claim is an Aarhus claim, and the defendant can dispute it.

Interested parties complicate the picture. The developer will usually be joined and may seek its own costs, although courts have generally been reluctant to award two sets of costs against an unsuccessful claimant in environmental cases.

Take advice from a solicitor with planning litigation experience before filing. This article is general guidance and not legal advice.

What to do instead when the six weeks have gone

Nothing in this list overturns a permission, and all of it costs nothing.

• Report a departure from the approved plans to the council's enforcement team. A development built differently from what was permitted is a separate issue with no six-week limit, and our note on how to get an update on an enforcement case explains what to expect.
• Check whether the conditions have been discharged. Many permissions carry conditions requiring approval of materials, drainage or landscaping before work starts, and those approvals are themselves decisions the public can comment on.
• Complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman about maladministration. The Ombudsman cannot quash a permission and can find fault in how the authority behaved.
• Engage with the next stage rather than the last one, through the neighbourhood plan or the local plan review, where consultation is structured and documented. A Statement of Community Involvement sets out how an authority says it will consult, and holding it to that document is often more effective than litigation.

Reading the register weekly, objecting in writing with planning reasons, and noting the decision date are the three habits that keep the six-week option open. Most people only learn them after they have lost it.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with a solicitor experienced in planning litigation 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.