Part allowed appeals and split decisions explained

An inspector can allow a planning appeal in part, but far less often than appellants hope. A part allowed planning appeal depends on whether the development described in the application is severable, and most descriptions are drafted as a single indivisible proposal. Where severability is absent, the inspector has two choices: allow the whole scheme or dismiss it. Which means the description of development, written months earlier by someone who was not thinking about appeals, often decides what outcomes are available.

Split decisions are more common where there are two appeals running together, and those are a different thing from a single appeal allowed in part.

When an inspector can allow part of a scheme

Three situations arise, and they are regularly confused.

The first is a severable proposal. Where the description covers distinct elements capable of independent existence, such as two separate buildings on separate parts of a site, an inspector can in principle grant permission for one and refuse the other. The elements have to be physically and functionally independent, not merely listed separately.

The second is a scheme narrowed by condition. The inspector grants permission for the development described, with a condition excluding a particular element: a condition stating that the development shall not include the outbuilding shown on a numbered drawing, or requiring revised drawings omitting it. This is the mechanism used most often in practice.

The third is linked appeals. A planning appeal and a listed building consent appeal, or a planning appeal and an enforcement notice appeal, are separate appeals that can be decided differently. On an enforcement notice appeal the inspector has express powers to correct or vary the notice and to uphold it in part, and can grant permission for part of the matters stated in it.

Householder appeals under the fast-track procedure are the hardest case. The inspector determines the scheme as submitted, with no scope for negotiation and limited scope for amendment.

Severability and the description of development

The practical lesson is to write the description with this in mind.

A description reading "erection of a dwelling with detached garage and formation of a new vehicular access" offers three elements the inspector can treat separately. One reading "residential development of the site" offers none. A description that bundles a contentious element into an otherwise acceptable scheme makes the whole thing refusable.

So, when drafting the application:

1. Separate elements that could stand alone, using "and" rather than folding them into a single phrase.
2. Keep the contentious element identifiable, with its own drawing number.
3. Avoid describing quantums where a reduction might be acceptable, if the plan can be fixed by drawing reference instead.
4. Do not over-split, because a description listing ten items invites ten separate judgements.

Where the application has already been submitted and refused, the description is fixed for the appeal. The remaining route is amendment.

Narrowing the scheme at appeal

An inspector can consider an amended or reduced scheme, within limits. The long-standing principle is that an amendment may be accepted where no party has been deprived of the opportunity to comment on it, so the test is procedural fairness rather than the size of the change.

In practice this means a reduction is far more acceptable than an addition, and a reduction notified in the statement of case is far more acceptable than one raised at the hearing. Flag it early, explain precisely what is being omitted, and provide the revised drawings so the council and any interested parties can respond.

What inspectors will not do is redesign the scheme. A request to "approve whatever the inspector considers acceptable" gets nowhere and signals that the appellant has not decided what they want.

The risk of an unworkable partial permission

This is the part that gets overlooked, and it is why a part allowed appeal is not automatically good news.

A permission for the dwelling without the access serves no purpose. A permission with the garage excised may leave the scheme failing the council's parking standards, so the first reserved matter or condition discharge becomes impossible. A permission for one of two buildings may leave the retained drainage strategy oversized and the viability assumptions wrong.

Test the partial outcome before asking for it. Walk through each condition, each standard and each technical report on the assumption that the element is removed, and check that the result is buildable. Where it is not, say so in the statement of case and ask for the whole scheme or nothing, which is a legitimate position and one inspectors understand.

Red line boundaries matter too. A permission covering only part of the application site leaves the remainder with no consent and sometimes with no access, which can be worse than a dismissal because it fixes a position on the land.

Asking for a fallback position

Appellants often want to present a primary scheme and an alternative. The appeal system does not accommodate two schemes in one appeal, and an inspector determines the proposal before them.

Two legitimate approaches exist.

Submit two applications and appeal both, so there are two appeals running in parallel which can be decided differently. This costs two fees and two sets of evidence, and it works where the two schemes are substantively different.

Or rely on a real fallback: an extant permission, or a permitted development right, that would allow something the appellant could build anyway. A fallback is a material consideration where there is a real prospect of it being implemented, and it supports an argument that the appeal scheme is preferable to what would otherwise happen. This is argument, not an alternative application, and the evidence has to establish the real prospect rather than assert it.

Appealing a prior approval refusal raises the mirror image of this, since the grounds of refusal are confined by the Order, as appealing a prior approval refusal under Class MA sets out.

Costs where an appeal succeeds in part

Costs in planning appeals are not awarded because a party won. They are awarded for unreasonable behaviour that caused another party to incur wasted expense.

A partial award is possible. Where a council pursued one refusal reason unreasonably, with no evidence, and that reason fell away, an appellant can seek costs limited to the work on that issue. The application has to identify the unreasonable behaviour and the expense it caused, and most costs applications fail because they do neither.

An appeal allowed in part, in itself, says nothing about reasonableness. A council that refused on two grounds and lost on one has not necessarily behaved unreasonably. Equally, winning the whole appeal does not produce costs unless the council's conduct was unreasonable.

Where the refusal followed a committee decision against officer advice, the costs position is different again, because the officer report is evidence of what the council's own professional assessment was. Committee refusals against officer advice looks at how that plays out.

Deciding whether to accept the outcome

A partial permission is a permission. Nobody has to implement it.

Work through four questions. Is the permitted development buildable without the excluded element, including conditions and standards. Does it still make financial sense. Can the missing element be brought back by a section 73 variation or a fresh application, and how likely is that given the inspector's reasoning. And is the inspector's reasoning on the excluded element so clear that a further attempt is pointless.

The reasoning is the valuable part of the decision whatever the outcome. An inspector who explains why one element failed has told you what a resubmission must change, and using appeal decisions in a planning application covers how to deploy that reasoning without overstating its status as precedent.

Where the answer is to resubmit, the Planning Statement should quote the inspector's conclusions on the point and show exactly how the revised scheme responds. That is the most persuasive document an applicant can put in front of a case officer.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.