Twin-tracking: when a duplicate application helps

Twin-tracking is the practice of submitting two identical or near-identical applications for the same development at the same time. The point of it is optionality. One application can be appealed for non-determination while the other stays with the council and continues to be negotiated, so the applicant keeps the officer relationship and the appeal route at once.

It is legitimate, it is used regularly on contested major schemes, and it is not free. Two fees, two rounds of consultation, and a statutory power that allows the authority to refuse to deal with the second application at all.

How the two applications are used

The usual arrangement is straightforward. Both applications are validated. When the determination period on the first expires, the applicant appeals it for non-determination, which transfers that application to the Planning Inspectorate. The second application stays live with the council.

From that point the applicant has two live routes. If the negotiation succeeds and the council resolves to grant on the second application, the appeal is withdrawn. If the negotiation stalls, the appeal continues and the inspector decides.

A second and less common use is the fallback. Two applications are submitted for materially different schemes, one ambitious and one modest, so that the modest scheme establishes a fallback position which is a material consideration in the determination of the ambitious one. That is a different exercise from true twin-tracking and it needs the two schemes to be materially distinct.

The fee position

Regulation 9 of the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012 provides an exemption, often called the free go, where the same applicant makes a further application for development of the same character on the same site within twelve months of an earlier decision or withdrawal.

That exemption does not rescue twin-tracking. The regulations exclude concurrent duplicate applications from the exemption, which means both fees are payable on a twin-tracked pair. Check the current wording of regulation 9 before you submit, because the exclusions have been amended and the point is worth confirming rather than assuming.

On a major application the two fees are substantial, and they should be weighed against what the second application actually buys. On a scheme where the council is engaged and the only problem is resourcing, the answer is usually not much.

The council's power to decline

Section 70B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 gives a local planning authority the power to decline to determine an overlapping application. Broadly, where a similar application is already under consideration by the authority or is the subject of an undetermined appeal, and the development plan and material considerations have not materially changed, the authority may simply refuse to deal with the duplicate.

That power is real and it is used. Some authorities publish a position on twin-tracking in their validation guidance and will not register a second application without an explanation.

Two things reduce the risk. Submit both applications at the same time so that neither is an overlapping application when it is made, and tell the council in writing what you are doing and why. An authority that discovers the duplicate itself will react differently from one that was told at the outset. Consulting the officer before submission is risk management rather than courtesy.

Managing two determinations at once

The administrative burden is heavier than people expect and the errors are expensive.

• Both applications must be kept identical, so every amended drawing has to be issued twice with matching revision references
• Neighbour consultation runs twice, which doubles the objections and irritates the same people twice
• Consultee responses arrive on two references and have to be reconciled
• Committee reports, if one is prepared, refer to one reference and not the other
• Any section 106 negotiation has to be capable of binding whichever permission survives

The version control point is the one that causes real damage. If the appeal proceeds on revision C while the council is negotiating revision E, the inspector is deciding a scheme the applicant no longer wants and the appeal has become a liability.

Keep one document register covering both references, and put the reference numbers of both applications on every transmittal.

How it looks from the council's side

Officers generally dislike twin-tracking, and the reason is not obstruction. A duplicate doubles the case work on an already stretched team, it consumes consultation resource twice, and it signals a lack of confidence in the process before anything has gone wrong.

It also has a political dimension on a contested scheme. Members who see two applications for the same development on the list will ask why, and the answer, that the applicant has reserved an appeal, does not help the case at committee.

Where the relationship with the authority matters for future sites, weigh that. On a one-off scheme in an area you will not return to, it matters less.

When it is worth doing

Four situations justify the cost.

1. A major application where the determination period has already been extended more than once and there is no committee date in prospect.
2. A scheme with a hard external deadline, such as an option agreement, a funding condition or an expiring consent, where certainty is worth more than the fee.
3. A case where the authority is unlikely to grant but the appeal prospects are good, and the applicant wants to keep negotiating a reduced scheme in parallel.
4. A site where policy is about to change, for instance an emerging local plan allocation that would harm the scheme, and locking in an appeal on the current policy position has value.

Outside those, the cheaper tool is a letter. A note recording that the determination period has expired, that the appeal right is now open, and asking for a decision by a stated date, achieves most of what twin-tracking achieves without the fee, the duplicate consultation or the section 70B risk.

If you do proceed, prepare both submissions to the same standard. Whichever route decides the scheme will be decided on the documents, so the Planning Statement and the Design and Access Statement need to work as an appeal statement as much as an application document. The full index of report types is a useful check that nothing in the evidence base is missing before you commit to two fees.

One honest observation. The applications that end up twin-tracked are usually the ones where the evidence base was thin at the start, and the second application is being used to buy time that better preparation would have made unnecessary. That is not always avoidable, and on a site bought with a deadline attached it may be the right call anyway. But the fee is buying you time, not a better case.

This is general guidance rather than legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

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