Resubmitting after a planning refusal using the free go

If your householder application has been refused, you can usually submit one revised application for the same development on the same site without paying a second fee, provided it goes in within twelve months of the decision. That is the free go. It is set out in regulation 9 of the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012, and it exists so that applicants can respond to a refusal without being charged twice for the same scheme. Most householders who resubmit after refusal use the free go without realising it has conditions attached, and those conditions are where people trip up.

What the fee exemption actually covers

The exemption removes the application fee. It does not remove anything else. You still need the full set of drawings, the ownership certificate, the site location plan at a recognised scale and whatever your council's validation list demands for a householder application. If the refusal was partly because the submission was thin, resubmitting the same thin bundle with no fee attached will simply produce a second refusal.

The exemption also applies once per earlier application. One refusal buys one free resubmission, not an open account. If the revised scheme is refused in turn, the next application is chargeable, and the twelve month clock on the original refusal does not restart.

Councils apply this at validation. Your agent, or you, should state on the covering information that the application is a revision of a named reference number and is submitted under the fee exemption. Leave that off and the application sits in the unpaid queue until someone chases you, which can cost a fortnight.

The twelve month clock and when it starts

The window runs from the date of the decision notice on the earlier application, not from the date you received it and not from the date of the committee meeting. Check the notice. Twelve months sounds generous, and then a structural engineer is slow, a neighbour consultation period falls over Christmas, and the deadline arrives with the drawings half finished.

Where the earlier application was withdrawn rather than refused, the window runs from the date of withdrawal. Where you appealed against non-determination, different wording applies, and the sensible move there is to ring the planning support team and ask them to confirm the date they are working from before you submit.

What has to stay the same

Four things have to hold for the exemption to bite, and they are worth checking in this order.

1. The applicant must be the same person, or the application must be made on their behalf. If the house has been sold, the new owner does not inherit the free go.
2. The site must be the same, or part of the same site. Shrinking the red line is fine. Adding a strip of a neighbour's garden is not.
3. The development must be of the same character or description. A rear extension that becomes a rear extension with a smaller footprint qualifies. A rear extension that becomes a detached annexe does not.
4. A fee must actually have been paid on the earlier application, and that earlier application must not itself have been a free resubmission.

The third test is the one that produces arguments. Officers read character or description broadly where the use and the form of development are unchanged, and narrowly where the revision changes the nature of what is proposed. Reducing a two storey side extension to a single storey side extension is a revision. Replacing it with a dropped kerb application is a new application with a new fee.

Where the exemption does not apply

The exemption attaches to applications for planning permission. It does not cover a listed building consent application, a lawful development certificate under section 191 or 192 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, or a discharge of conditions submission. If your refused scheme touched a listed building, you will be paying again for the consent even if the planning application itself is free.

It also does not help where the first application was never validated. An application that was returned as invalid was never determined, so there is no decision to resubmit against, though councils will normally refund or carry forward the fee in that situation if you ask promptly.

And it does nothing about the cost of the professional input. A refusal on overlooking grounds may need a revised daylight study. A refusal on design grounds may need the elevations redrawn. The fee is often the smallest line in the budget.

Resubmission or appeal

These are alternatives, and choosing between them is a judgement about why the council said no.

Householder appeals run on a twelve week timetable and use a simplified written procedure, so they are faster than most people expect. But an inspector decides the scheme in front of them, with no negotiation and no chance to amend. If the fix is obvious and small, a free resubmission with a short covering statement is nearly always quicker and less fraught than arguing it out. Where members went against their officer, the arithmetic changes, and our note on committee refusals against officer advice sets out why.

You can also do both, in sequence. Appeal the refusal and submit a revised application while the appeal runs. It costs more in time and drawings, and it occasionally annoys the case officer, but for a scheme with a fixed funding deadline it hedges the risk.

Making the changes answer the refusal

Take the reasons for refusal as a numbered list and answer each one in writing. Not in general terms. Reason by reason, with the drawing reference that shows the change.

A refusal that says the extension would appear as a dominant addition to the host dwelling and would harm the character of the street scene is telling you three things: the bulk is wrong, the relationship to the original house is wrong, and the judgement is being made from the public footway. Setting the ridge below the main roof, pulling the flank back from the boundary and showing a verified street elevation deals with all three. Adding a rooflight does not.

Where the refusal cited an appeal decision or a design guide, read it. Inspectors' reasoning on similar schemes is a legitimate material consideration, and using appeal decisions in a planning application is routine practice for agents. It is not binding, and it should be described as indicative rather than as precedent.

A short Planning Statement is the efficient way to carry that argument. For a householder resubmission it does not need to be long: the planning history, the reasons for refusal, the change made in response to each, and the development plan policies the revised scheme now accords with. Two or three pages of that is worth more to a case officer than twenty pages of policy recitation.

As an illustrative example, a rear extension on a 1930s semi refused for a 4 metre projection that breached a 45 degree line from the neighbour's nearest habitable room window might come back at 3 metres with the same internal layout, a flat roof instead of a pitch, and a plan showing the 45 degree test passed. Same character, same site, same applicant, no fee. The drawing does the work, and the statement explains it.

One honest uncertainty: the fee regulations have been amended repeatedly, including the uplift that took effect in December 2023 and the annual indexation that began in April 2025, and the exemption for repeat applications has been the subject of consultation. Check the current consolidated version of the 2012 Regulations on legislation.gov.uk and your council's published fee page before you rely on a free resubmission. This is general guidance rather than legal advice, so confirm the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before acting on it.

Once you know which documents the revised application needs, enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports the site is likely to need. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.