Statement of common ground: structure for an inquiry

A statement of common ground is the document that tells an inspector what the parties have stopped arguing about. It is not evidence, it is not advocacy, and it is not a place to make your case. It records the facts, the policy framework and the matters both sides accept, so that the inquiry time goes on the matters actually in dispute.

The Planning Inspectorate's procedural guidance requires one for an inquiry, on a timetable set when the appeal is started, and the discipline it imposes is the point. Parties that draft it properly find the issues narrowing. Parties that treat it as a formality arrive at the inquiry arguing about the site area.

What the document is for

Three purposes, in order of practical value.

It removes uncontested facts from the hearing room, so nobody spends a morning establishing that the site is 1.8 hectares. It fixes the policy framework, so both sides are working from the same plan, the same policies and the same version of national policy. And it identifies the matters in dispute precisely enough that each party's evidence can be written against them.

A well drafted statement usually shortens an inquiry by a day or more. That is real money for both parties, which is why inspectors press on it at the case management conference.

The agreed description of the site and proposal

Start with the factual spine, because it is the easiest part to agree and it sets the tone.

• The site address, area and boundaries, with an agreed plan reference.
• The existing use and the physical characteristics of the site and surroundings.
• Designations affecting the site, listed with their source.
• The planning history, with application references, dates and decisions.
• The description of development as applied for, and any agreed amendment to it.
• The appeal reference and the procedure being followed.

Where a fact cannot be agreed, say so in the statement rather than omitting it. A note recording that the parties differ on whether a boundary hedge is a hedgerow under the Hedgerows Regulations 1997 is more useful than silence.

The agreed policy framework

List the development plan documents with their adoption dates, the policies each party relies on, the relevant national policy, and any supplementary planning documents and their status.

Two drafting points save arguments later. Cite the edition and date of national policy, because the Framework has been reissued more than once and the structure changed with it. And record the weight each party attaches to emerging policy separately, because weight is almost always in dispute even when the existence of the document is not.

Where housing land supply is an issue, the statement should record the supply position each party contends for, the base date, and the components of the calculation that are agreed. Often the parties agree the arithmetic and disagree about two sites.

Agreeing the supply components in writing has a further benefit. It forces the council to set out its trajectory assumptions before the inquiry, and it forces the appellant to identify precisely which allocations are challenged. Both sides then write evidence about four sites instead of forty.

Matters agreed and matters in dispute

This is the section inspectors read first.

Write the agreed matters as positive statements, each capable of being relied on without further evidence. Write the disputed matters as questions or as short propositions that identify what the inspector has to decide. Avoid burying a disagreement inside an agreed matter with a qualifier, because it will be picked apart in cross-examination.

Keep the two lists parallel. If the parties agree that the scheme would not harm highway safety, say so and delete the highways evidence from both proofs. That is the saving the document exists to deliver.

Conditions agreed without prejudice

Include a schedule of conditions agreed between the parties, expressed as agreed without prejudice to the local planning authority's case that permission should be refused.

Draft them to the tests in the national guidance: necessary, relevant to planning, relevant to the development, enforceable, precise and reasonable. Pre-commencement conditions need particular attention, since the applicant's written agreement is required before one is imposed.

Where a condition is not agreed, set out both versions side by side with a short note of the difference. An inspector granting permission will use the schedule, so an hour spent on the wording is an hour well spent.

What does not belong in it

Keep three things out. Opinion about whether permission should be granted, which belongs in the proofs. Material that neither party can verify, such as an assertion about how a council usually behaves. And anything the signatories have not actually read, which happens more often than anyone admits when a document is assembled from two drafts the night before a deadline.

The test to apply to each sentence is whether both parties would be content to have it read aloud by the other side's advocate. If not, it is argument rather than common ground.

Signature blocks, timing and topic statements

The statement is signed by both main parties, usually by the agent or the appellant's planning witness and by the council's officer, and dated. Rule 6 parties, where they exist, may sign their own separate statement with the appellant.

Deadlines come from the appeal timetable rather than from custom, and the timetable is set at the start of the appeal. Missing the deadline is noticed. Where evidence is technical, topic specific statements between the relevant witnesses, on highways, heritage, ecology or drainage, are increasingly expected and are signed by those witnesses rather than by the planning witnesses.

Start drafting before you write the proofs. A statement produced after the proofs are written simply records the disagreement the proofs already set out, which is the wrong way round.

Where the drafting usually breaks down

Four recurring problems.

1. One party sends a draft two days before the deadline, leaving no time to negotiate, and the statement records far less agreement than it could.
2. The document is written by someone who is not giving evidence, so the witnesses do not own what it says.
3. Agreed matters are drafted so vaguely that they agree nothing, for example that both parties agree the site is in a sustainable location "to some degree".
4. The condition schedule is copied from the officer's report without checking it against the current scheme.

All four are avoidable by starting early and by treating the statement as a negotiation rather than as an exchange of drafts.

For the supporting documents that sit around an appeal submission, a Planning Statement prepared at application stage is often the source of the agreed factual material, and a Design and Access Statement supplies the description of the proposal. A related structure for the application stage is set out in our planning application cover letter structure, and the checklist approach carries over from an outline planning application checklist.

This is general guidance, not legal advice, and inquiry procedure is set by the Planning Inspectorate and the relevant rules. Check the current procedural guidance and your appeal timetable 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.