Written reps, hearing or inquiry: choosing the procedure

The planning appeal procedure choice is not the appellant's to make. You express a preference on the appeal form, the local planning authority expresses its own, and the Planning Inspectorate decides which of written representations, a hearing or an inquiry the appeal will follow, applying published criteria to the issues in the case. Most appeals go to written representations because most appeals do not need anything else. The judgement worth making is whether yours is one of the minority that does, and then whether the extra cost buys anything.

Get it wrong in the expensive direction and the client pays for advocacy nobody needed. Get it wrong in the other direction and a weak piece of evidence goes untested.

The three procedures and who decides

Written representations is a paper process ending in a site visit, with the case decided on the documents. A hearing is a round table discussion chaired by the Inspector, informal in tone, with no cross-examination and no advocates in the formal sense. An inquiry is a formal proceeding with statements of case, proofs of evidence, examination in chief, cross-examination and closing submissions, usually with counsel instructed on both sides.

Since the procedural reforms of 2013 the Inspectorate determines the procedure rather than the appellant selecting it. Both main parties set out their preference and their reasons, and the Inspectorate applies its criteria. Third parties can make representations about the procedure, and substantial local interest is one of the factors considered, though it rarely determines the outcome on its own.

The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 contains powers allowing different parts of an appeal to be handled by different procedures. Check whether those provisions are in force before relying on them, because commencement of that Act has been staged.

The criteria the Inspectorate applies

The published criteria come down to whether the issues can be understood and decided from written material alone.

Written representations suit an appeal where the facts are largely agreed, the policy is clear, the issues are contained and nothing turns on the credibility of a witness. Design and amenity refusals on householder and minor schemes fall here almost automatically.

A hearing becomes appropriate where the Inspector needs to ask questions to understand the case, where the issues are complicated but not adversarial, where a party is unrepresented and would struggle in a formal setting, or where a discussion between the parties is likely to narrow the dispute. Section 106 negotiations and condition wording often benefit from the format.

An inquiry is for cases where evidence needs testing under cross-examination, where the legal issues are substantial, where the development is large or the site sensitive, or where the volume and complexity of evidence would overwhelm a written process. Housing land supply disputes, Green Belt very special circumstances cases and heritage balance arguments on major schemes are the usual candidates.

When cross-examination earns its cost

Cross-examination is the only mechanism in the appeal system that tests an assertion against a witness who has to answer.

It earns its cost where two expert positions conflict and the conflict is about method rather than judgement. A viability appraisal built on a benchmark land value the other side says is unsupportable, a traffic model with trip rates drawn from an inappropriate comparator set, a heritage assessment that has not considered a contributing element of setting: these are cases where an hour of questioning exposes something a written statement conceals.

It earns nothing where the dispute is a matter of planning judgement. Whether a two storey rear extension is overbearing does not become clearer because a witness is asked about it under oath. Inspectors form their own view on those questions and say so.

The other honest reason for an inquiry is institutional. Where a council has refused against officer advice on thin reasons, the prospect of its members' decision being tested in public, with a costs application in the background, changes the dynamic before the inquiry ever opens.

Cost and programme

An inquiry costs an order of magnitude more than written representations. Counsel's brief and refreshers, expert witnesses preparing proofs and attending, a venue, a transcript in some cases, and the team's time through a sitting week that may run several days.

The Rosewell recommendations on inquiries led the Inspectorate to compress the timetable substantially, with earlier case management and firmer dates. Speed does not lower the bill: a shorter programme concentrates the same work into fewer weeks, which can raise fees rather than lower them.

Hearings sit between the two. There is no counsel and no proofs in the formal sense, but the experts still attend and the preparation still has to be done.

Written representations is the only procedure where the cost is bounded by the documents. For a minor scheme, the whole exercise can be a well drafted statement of case, the application documents and a clear set of plans. A properly structured Planning Statement prepared at application stage does a lot of that work in advance.

Evidence that suits each format

Some evidence simply does not travel well on paper.

Photographic and visual material works in writing, provided the viewpoints are agreed and the images are properly referenced. Numerical evidence with a transparent method, such as a daylight assessment reporting vertical sky component values against BRE guidance, also survives a written process, because the Inspector can check the calculation.

What does not survive is evidence resting on assumptions that need probing. Viability appraisals, housing land supply trajectories and trip generation forecasts all contain inputs chosen by the author, and a written rebuttal is a statement of disagreement rather than a test.

Where a hearing or inquiry is likely, a statement of common ground is the document that decides how long the event runs. Agreeing the facts, the policy framework and the areas actually in dispute removes days of evidence.

Asking for a different procedure

Make the case on the form, not afterwards. The appeal form asks for a preference and for reasons, and a reasoned request setting out which issues need testing and why carries far more weight than a box ticked.

If the Inspectorate allocates a procedure you think is wrong, write and say so, giving the criteria you rely on. Requests to move from written representations to a hearing succeed more often than requests to move to an inquiry, because the threshold is lower.

Circumstances change during a case. A council statement that introduces a new reason, or a late objection raising a technical issue, can justify asking for a change, and the Inspectorate can and does re-allocate. Ask promptly, because a request made after the timetable is well advanced disrupts everyone.

What follows from the wrong choice

Choosing written representations for a case that needed testing produces a decision that reads as a preference between two written positions. That is a legitimate outcome and it is very hard to challenge, because a disagreement with the Inspector's planning judgement is not a point of law. The route to the High Court under section 288 is narrow, as judicial review and statutory challenge sets out.

Choosing an inquiry for a case that did not need one produces a bill and an award of costs risk. Unreasonable behaviour includes pursuing a procedure out of proportion to the issues, and an appellant who insisted on an inquiry to argue a single amenity point should not be surprised by an application against them.

There is a third failure that gets less attention. Where the procedure fits but the preparation does not, an appellant arrives at a hearing with a written case built for a paper process and no witness able to answer the Inspector's questions on drainage. Match the team to the format at the outset, and expect the conditions to be debated whichever route you take, since conditions imposed by an inspector often differ from those the council proposed.

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.