Site notices, press notices and neighbour letters compared

If you are trying to find out whether a planning application near you was properly advertised, the answer is in Article 15 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015. That article sets out which publicity a council must carry out for each kind of application, and the site notice or press notice planning question has a precise answer: for some applications both are compulsory, for most householder applications the council chooses between a site notice and letters to neighbours.

Councils often do more than the minimum as a matter of local practice. What they cannot do is less.

Where the publicity duties come from

Article 15 requires the local planning authority to publicise an application in a manner that depends on what the application is for. The categories are set out in the article itself, and the duty sits on the authority rather than on the applicant, which is why an applicant who hears nothing about a site notice has not necessarily done anything wrong.

Listed building consent and conservation area publicity have their own statutory route under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 and the regulations made under it, with similar site notice and newspaper requirements. Applications for prior approval under the General Permitted Development Order have their own, narrower publicity rules written into each class.

When a site notice is required

A site notice is the universal method. It has to be displayed in at least one place on or near the land, in a position where the public can read it, for a period of not less than 21 days.

For the categories where both methods are compulsory, the site notice is one half of the duty. For other applications it is one of two options. And where a notice is removed, defaced or obscured by someone other than the authority, the authority is generally treated as having complied if it took reasonable steps to display it and did not cause the removal.

When a press notice must also be published

A newspaper advertisement is required for the categories in the table above. The point of it is reach: a site notice tells the immediate neighbours, while a newspaper notice tells a wider area that a major or departure application exists.

Two practical consequences. The period for representations following a newspaper advertisement is shorter than the 21 days that runs from a site notice, so on a major application the two periods end on different dates and the later one governs when the authority may determine. And the cost of the advertisement is usually recovered from the applicant on major applications, so it appears on the invoice rather than in the fee.

Departures from the development plan are the category applicants forget. An application the authority considers a departure attracts newspaper publicity even where the scheme is small, and that affects both the timetable and the likely volume of representations.

Neighbour notification as local practice

Letters to adjoining owners and occupiers are a statutory option for the general category of applications, and most authorities use them for householder work because they reach the people most affected.

Who gets a letter is a matter of local practice, usually set out in the authority's statement of community involvement: commonly the properties sharing a boundary with the application site, sometimes a wider ring on larger schemes. A neighbour who did not receive a letter has not been wronged if the authority also displayed a site notice, since the article requires one method or the other for that category. Asking the authority which method it used, and on what date, is the useful question. Our note on getting consultee responses and the officer's case file explains how to see the rest of the file.

The 21 day period and how it is counted

The 21 days run from the date the site notice is first displayed, not from the date the application was validated and not from the date a letter was posted. For a newspaper advertisement the period runs from the date of publication.

The authority must not determine the application before the relevant period has expired. Where it has used more than one method, the period that ends last is the operative one. Where a consultation period is extended, for example because revised plans were submitted or because a notice was found to have fallen down, the authority will re-advertise and a fresh period begins.

Representations made after the period has closed are still normally taken into account up to the point of decision, because the authority has to consider material considerations before determining. Late objections are not automatically excluded, though an objection arriving after the officer report is published will not be in it.

Defective publicity and its consequences

A failure of publicity does not automatically invalidate a decision. What it creates is a risk, and the risk is proportionate to the prejudice caused.

Where a notice was never displayed, or displayed for too short a period, the normal remedy is for the authority to re-advertise and restart the period before determining. Where a decision has already been issued and someone was in fact deprived of the chance to make representations, the route is judicial review, which is subject to a short time limit and has to be brought promptly. Objecting about publicity after a decision is issued, through correspondence alone, achieves very little.

For an applicant, the practical risk of defective publicity is delay rather than loss of permission, so it is worth checking that publicity was carried out correctly before the determination period expires rather than afterwards. If you are weighing the timetable, the related question of appealing non-determination or waiting is relevant.

Checking what publicity was actually carried out

Four steps, all of which you can take from the authority's website or by a short email to the case officer.

1. Open the application on the authority's online register and look for the publicity documents, which are often listed as a site notice, press notice or neighbour letter.
2. Check the dates on them, and work out the expiry of each period.
3. Read the officer report, which usually records the publicity carried out and the number of representations received.
4. Ask the case officer in writing which method was used, when, and where the notice was displayed, and keep the reply.

Where the application is one where both methods were compulsory, check that both happened. Where ownership of the site is in question, the certificates on the application form matter too, as our note on ownership certificates A to D explains.

None of this changes the planning merits. It changes whether the people affected got the chance to put those merits to the council, which is the whole purpose of the article. To see what documents an application of your own would need, browse the report types.

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.