Missing the appeal deadline and what is left

A missed appeal deadline is one of the few problems in the planning system with no negotiated solution. The general limit for appealing a refusal is six months from the date on the decision notice. For householder applications and for minor commercial applications the limit is twelve weeks. There is a power to accept an appeal outside the period, and it is exercised rarely enough that no sensible strategy depends on it.

So the honest answer to "we missed it" is that the appeal is gone and the work now goes into a better application. That is usually a more productive route than the appeal would have been, which is small comfort and often true.

The general six month limit and its start date

The right of appeal comes from section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and the period within which it must be exercised is prescribed in the procedure order. For most application types it is six months.

Two details cause most of the trouble. The period runs from the date on the decision notice, not from the date you received it or the date the decision appeared online, so a notice dated on a Friday and posted the following Wednesday has already used five days of your time. And the appeal must be received by the Planning Inspectorate within the period. Submitting at 23:50 on the final day through the appeals service is possible, and relying on it is a poor plan, because a portal problem at that hour has no remedy.

Read the decision notice itself. It states the appeal route and the deadline, and it is the document the Inspectorate will look at if the date is disputed.

Shorter limits for householder and minor commercial appeals

Twelve weeks applies to householder appeals and to minor commercial appeals, both of which use an expedited procedure with no exchange of statements after the appeal is lodged.

That shorter period has a practical consequence beyond the date. Because you cannot add evidence later, everything has to be in the appeal submission, so a householder appeal needs its full case, drawings and photographs ready at the point of lodging. Twelve weeks that includes Christmas, a holiday and a wait for an arboriculturist's report is tighter than it sounds.

Other limits sit alongside these. Enforcement notice appeals have to be made before the notice takes effect. Appeals against refusal of a certificate of lawful use or development follow the six month period. Where an authority has failed to determine an application, the period runs from the expiry of the determination period rather than from a decision.

Whether the time limit can be extended

The rules allow the Secretary of State to accept an appeal outside the prescribed period. In practice the Inspectorate applies that narrowly, and the cases where it has been used tend to involve something the appellant could not control, such as a decision notice sent to the wrong address or issued in a defective form.

Arguments that do not work: the agent left the firm, the client was abroad, the specialist report took longer than expected, nobody realised the period was twelve weeks rather than six months. If you are close to the line, lodge the appeal and complete the case afterwards where the procedure allows it, rather than waiting until the evidence is perfect.

There is one thing worth doing on the day you discover the problem. Write to the authority and ask it to confirm the date the decision was issued and the date it was sent. If there is a discrepancy that matters, you want it in writing while the officer still remembers.

Resubmission as the practical remedy

A fresh application is the route in almost every case, and it has real advantages over an appeal. It is faster, the officer is available to discuss it, and the design can change in response to the reasons for refusal rather than being defended as submitted.

Work in this order:

1. Read the decision notice and the officer report together, separating the reasons for refusal from the commentary around them.
2. Take each reason and decide whether it is answered by evidence, by design change, or not at all.
3. Ask for pre-application advice on the revised scheme, and put the reasons for refusal in the pre-application submission so the officer engages with them directly.
4. Gather the evidence that was missing the first time, including any survey with a seasonal window.
5. Rewrite the Planning Statement so it answers each reason under its own heading.
6. Submit, with a covering note that maps the changes to the reasons.

That structure matters more than the design changes. An officer who can see which reason each change answers will recommend approval far more readily than one who has to work it out. The discipline of reading the reasons for refusal properly is the same whether you are appealing or resubmitting, and on householder schemes the patterns behind why householder applications are refused are worth knowing before the redesign starts.

Appeal decisions on comparable schemes still help here, even though your own appeal has gone. Citing them in a fresh application is legitimate and effective, and using appeal decisions as evidence is a normal part of a resubmission case, treated as an indication of how inspectors have approached an issue rather than as binding precedent.

The free repeat application and its conditions

The fee regulations allow one further application without a fee in defined circumstances. Broadly, it must be for development of the same character or description, on the same site, by the same applicant, submitted within twelve months of the decision on the earlier application, and the earlier application must not itself have been a free one.

Three cautions. Only one such application is available, so using it on a half considered scheme wastes it. The description has to be recognisably the same, which limits how far the scheme can change. And authorities interpret the conditions, so confirm your entitlement with the validation team in writing before you rely on it.

Illustrative example. A rear and side extension refused on scale and on the effect on the neighbour's kitchen window. The twelve week householder appeal period passed while the client obtained quotations. The revised scheme reduces the side element by 900mm, sets the rear back from the shared boundary, adds a section drawing through the neighbour's window and a photographic schedule, and goes in as a free second application eight months after the refusal. It was approved under delegated powers. The appeal, had it been lodged, would have taken longer and would have defended a scheme that was worse.

Judicial review as a separate question

Judicial review is not a second chance on the merits. It tests the legality of the decision: whether the authority took into account something it should not have, failed to take into account something it should have, misinterpreted policy or acted unfairly.

The time limit is much shorter than the appeal period, the costs exposure is real, and the court will normally expect an appellant to have used the statutory appeal route where one was available. That last point is the obstacle for someone who has missed an appeal deadline, because the existence of the unused appeal route is itself a reason for the court to decline permission.

Take legal advice quickly where you think the decision was unlawful rather than simply wrong. The window is measured in weeks.

Diarising the date properly

Three habits prevent this problem entirely.

Diarise the deadline on the day the decision arrives, with a reminder four weeks before it and another two weeks before it. Record which limit applies, because the twelve week and six month periods are easy to confuse across a mixed caseload. And check the planning portal for the decision rather than waiting for the post, since the clock starts from the date on the notice regardless of when it reaches you.

Where a scheme is contentious, decide the appeal question early and in principle. A client who is told at week two that an appeal would cost a given amount and take a given time makes a better decision than one asked at week eleven.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it, and take legal advice on any challenge to the lawfulness of a decision.

PlanScope drafts the supporting statements for a resubmission from your site data and the points you need to answer, so the unbilled writing time goes into the argument rather than the formatting. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which of the reports a resubmission needs apply to the site.