Reading reasons for refusal before you decide to appeal

A refusal notice usually runs to one or two paragraphs, and those paragraphs decide whether you should appeal, redesign or walk away. Reading reasons for refusal properly means separating what the council has found as fact from what it has concluded as a matter of judgement, because the first can sometimes be fixed with a drawing and the second usually cannot.

Do this before anything else. The householder appeal deadline is twelve weeks from the date on the decision notice, which is less time than it sounds.

How reasons for refusal are drafted

The Development Management Procedure Order 2015 requires a refusal notice to state the reasons clearly and precisely, and to refer to the development plan policies relied on.

In practice a reason has three parts: a description of the harm, the policies it conflicts with, and sometimes a sentence on why any benefits do not outweigh it. A typical householder reason might identify an extension as excessive in scale and unsympathetic in design, cite the design policy in the adopted local plan and the council's householder design guide, and conclude that the proposal is contrary to those policies.

Officers draft reasons knowing they may have to defend them at appeal. That produces two tendencies worth recognising. Reasons are often drawn narrowly, to defend only what can be defended, which means anything the officer disliked but could not justify does not appear. And reasons are sometimes drafted broadly and vaguely, which usually indicates a decision taken at committee against an officer recommendation.

A vague reason is not good news. It is harder to answer, and at appeal it is harder for the council to support, which is a different thing.

Separating policy from judgement

Take each reason and split it in two. What has the council found, and what has it concluded?

Findings are things like: the extension projects 4 metres beyond the rear wall, the flank wall is 1 metre from the boundary, the site lies within the conservation area, or no drainage details were submitted. These are checkable, and some are simply wrong, in which case the appeal or resubmission starts from a much stronger position.

Conclusions are things like: the extension would appear dominant, the proposal would harm the character of the area, or the relationship to the neighbouring property would be unacceptable. These are planning judgements, and an inspector may reach a different one, but there is no error to point at.

The officer report, which is published on the council's website alongside the decision, usually explains the reasoning at greater length than the notice. Read it in full. It often reveals which part of the objection was decisive, which consultee raised it, and whether the officer considered a variant that would have been acceptable.

Where the report says that a scheme "set back a further metre" or "reduced to single storey at the rear" would have been supported, the council has told you what to do.

Reasons that are curable by design change

Some objections have a defined fix, and where the fix is acceptable to the client, a revised application is faster and more certain than an appeal.

Commonly curable:

• excessive depth or height, curable by reducing the projection or dropping the ridge
• overlooking, curable by removing or obscure glazing a window, or relocating a balcony
• loss of parking, curable by reconfiguring the frontage or demonstrating the remaining provision
• missing information, such as a drainage strategy, ecology survey or heritage assessment, curable by supplying it
• materials, curable by amending the specification or accepting a condition

Missing information is the most frustrating category and the easiest to fix. An application refused because no survey was submitted has not been refused on its merits at all, and there is usually no point appealing: the appeal would be decided on the same absent evidence.

There is a financial point here too. The fees regulations allow one further application for substantially the same development on the same site by the same applicant, free of fee, within twelve months of the decision on the earlier application. That covers most redesign cases, and it is lost if you wait.

Reasons that cannot be cured

Some objections go to the principle of the development, and no amount of redesign addresses them.

A refusal on the principle of development in the Green Belt, on the loss of an employment site, on the creation of a separate dwelling in a location where that is unacceptable, or on the unsustainable location of the site, is a refusal of the idea rather than the drawing. Reducing the scheme by 10 per cent changes nothing.

Refusals based on an inspector's or officer's view of character can also be effectively incurable where the objection is to the type of development rather than its dimensions. A dormer refused because dormers are out of character in that street will not be saved by a smaller dormer.

In those cases the choice is between appealing on the merits, which means arguing that the council's judgement is wrong, and abandoning that use of the site. Appeal decisions on similar proposals nearby are useful indicators of how inspectors have approached the issue, though they are not binding precedent and should not be described as though they were.

Checking the officer report against the notice

This is the step most householders skip, and it is the one that most often changes the decision about what to do.

Look for four things. Whether the reasons in the notice match the concerns in the report, because a mismatch suggests a committee decision that may be weakly supported. Whether any consultee objected and on what grounds, since a highway authority objection is a different proposition from a neighbour's. Whether the report records that amended plans were sought and refused or not offered. And whether the officer recommended approval.

An officer recommendation of approval overturned at committee is the strongest single indicator that an appeal is worth considering, because the council will have to defend a position its own professional adviser did not support.

Where the refusal turned on a technical issue, the report will usually name the document that was missing or inadequate, which is the specification for what to produce next. A refusal on surface water drainage, for example, points directly at the evidence described in proving a surface water strategy, and one on daylight to a neighbouring window points at the sectional evidence set out in refused on daylight to a neighbour's window.

Testing the reasons against the development plan

Pull up the policies cited and read them. They are on the council's website and they are usually shorter than expected.

Three checks. Does the policy say what the reason implies it says? Is the policy actually the one that applies to this kind of development? And is the document still part of the development plan, or has it been superseded by a more recent adopted plan?

Policies from an old local plan that has been replaced carry no weight as part of the development plan, and a refusal citing them is vulnerable. Equally, a supplementary planning document is a material consideration rather than part of the development plan, which matters when it is the only thing the reason relies on.

Section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 requires determination in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. That is the frame for the whole argument, and a Planning Statement supporting a resubmission or an appeal should be built around it rather than around the merits of the design in the abstract.

Choosing between appeal and resubmission

Resubmit where the objection is curable, where the client accepts the change, and where the free application is still available. It is faster, it keeps the relationship with the case officer, and it usually produces a permission within eight weeks.

Appeal where the objection goes to principle, where the council's judgement looks vulnerable, where an officer recommendation was overturned, or where redesigning would produce something not worth building.

Householder appeals are decided on the application documents through a short written procedure, so the case has to be made in the appeal form itself. That is a reason to prepare it properly rather than quickly, and procedural errors cause appeals to be returned, which is set out in why the Planning Inspectorate returns appeals as invalid.

And if you are still unsure, the twelve week deadline forces the issue. Decide by week eight.

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.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports a resubmitted application is likely to need.