Recovered appeals: when the Secretary of State decides

A recovered appeal is an appeal the Secretary of State takes away from the inspector and decides personally. The inspector still holds the inquiry or hearing, still writes a report, but ends it with a recommendation rather than a decision. The power sits in paragraph 3 of Schedule 6 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and it can be used at any point before the decision is issued, including after an inquiry has closed.

For a developer, recovery usually means two things: a longer wait, and a decision taken against national political priorities as well as the development plan. Neither is a reason to change your case. Both are reasons to change how you present it.

What recovery means and when it happens

Recovery is a direction. The Planning Inspectorate writes to the parties saying the appeal has been recovered for the Secretary of State's own determination and gives the reason by reference to the published criteria. Nothing about the grounds of appeal changes, and the appeal continues under the same procedure it was already following.

Recovery is not the same as call-in. A call-in under section 77 of the 1990 Act intercepts an undetermined planning application and moves the whole decision to the Secretary of State, so there is no local refusal at all. Recovery operates on an appeal that already exists, against a decision the council has already made or failed to make in time. The practical difference matters for your evidence: in a recovered appeal the council's reasons for refusal still frame the main issues.

A direction can also be revoked. If the stated reason for recovery falls away, for example because a policy the appeal was being held for has since been published, the appeal can be transferred back to an inspector for decision.

Published criteria for recovery

The criteria are set out in Written Ministerial Statements rather than in regulations, and they have been revised several times. Read the most recent statement on gov.uk before you assume your scheme falls inside or outside them, because both the categories and the thresholds have moved.

The classes that have appeared in recent statements group broadly like this. Proposals raising issues of more than local importance. Schemes involving substantial development in the Green Belt. Proposals that conflict with national policy in a way ministers want to settle themselves. Development affecting designated heritage assets of the highest grade. Residential schemes above a stated number of dwellings, and retail development above a stated floorspace. Travellers' sites and renewable energy schemes have each had their own recovery policy for limited periods.

Two practical observations. Recovery decisions cluster around policy transitions, when ministers want to set the line rather than read it. And the stated reason in the recovery letter is worth taking literally, because it tells you which paragraph of the decision letter will carry the weight.

How the procedure changes

The inquiry itself feels identical. Advocates still cross-examine, the inspector still issues procedural rulings, and the statement of common ground still does most of the work. What changes is the audience for the closing submissions, which are now read by officials preparing advice and by a minister who was not in the room.

That is a reason to write closings that stand alone. An argument that depends on the atmosphere of the hearing room, or on a concession you believe the inspector absorbed without it being recorded, is weaker in a recovered appeal than anywhere else.

The inspector's report and recommendation

The report is a full document. It sets out the site, the policy framework, the cases of the parties, the inspector's findings on each main issue, and a recommendation to allow or dismiss with conditions and any obligation attached. It is published alongside the decision letter, so it becomes public at the same moment as the outcome.

The Secretary of State can accept the recommendation, accept it with different reasoning, or depart from it. Departure is lawful, but it has to be explained. Where the Secretary of State disagrees with the inspector on a matter of fact, or takes into account new evidence or a new matter of fact not raised at the inquiry, the inquiries procedure rules require the parties to be notified and given the chance to make written representations before the decision is issued.

Illustrative example

Take a 220 dwelling edge of settlement scheme refused on landscape harm, recovered because of its size and its Green Belt setting. The inspector recommends allowing the appeal, finding moderate landscape harm outweighed by a housing land supply shortfall. If the Secretary of State intends instead to find the harm severe, that is a different judgement on the same evidence and no further consultation is required. If the Secretary of State relies on a new five year housing land supply figure published after the inquiry, that is a new matter of fact and the parties must be given the opportunity to comment. This example is illustrative.

Timescales once an appeal is recovered

There is no statutory deadline. The Planning Inspectorate publishes indicative timescales for the stages it controls, but the period between the inspector's report reaching the department and the decision issuing is outside those targets, and it has run to many months on contentious schemes.

Three things help. Keep the section 106 agreement completed and dated rather than in draft, because an incomplete obligation is the most common reason a recovered decision stalls. Keep your conditions schedule agreed with the council in a signed document. And monitor policy changes, because a recovered decision issued after a new framework or a new written statement will be taken against the position at the date of the decision, not the date of the inquiry. Our note on reading a refusal notice and turning it into a plan covers how to keep the evidence base current through a long appeal.

Representations after the inquiry closes

You can write in, and on a recovered appeal you sometimes should. Post-inquiry representations are accepted where they draw attention to a change in circumstances that bears on the decision: a newly adopted local plan, a revised framework, an appeal decision on the same policy question, a Supreme Court or Court of Appeal judgment. Copy every other main party, keep it short, and attach the document rather than describing it.

What will not help is re-arguing the merits. Officials filter correspondence against the report, and a letter that reopens evidence the inspector already weighed invites a sentence in the decision letter dismissing it.

Interested parties can write in too, and the appeal remains open to them in the same way. The companion piece on what objectors can do once a planning appeal starts sets out that side of the process.

Challenging a recovered decision

The route is the same as for an inspector's decision: an application under section 288 of the 1990 Act to the Planning Court, which must be made within six weeks of the date the decision is issued. The court reviews legality, not planning merits. The grounds that succeed are failure to give adequate reasons, failure to take account of a mandatory material consideration, misinterpretation of policy, and procedural unfairness where a party was not given the chance to address a point the decision turned on.

Recovered decisions attract one ground more often than inspector decisions: inadequate reasoning for departing from the inspector's recommendation. The report sets out findings in detail, so a decision letter that rejects them without engaging with the reasoning is exposed. Read the two documents side by side within the first week, because six weeks is short once advice and a claim form are factored in.

A well evidenced appeal statement is still the foundation, whoever signs the decision. PlanScope can draft the planning statement and supporting narrative to the policy structure your case needs, with sources cited and gaps flagged for your advisers to fill.

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.