You should not rush to appeal. That has always been good advice, and since the appeal rules changed in April 2026 it has become the single most important judgement a refused applicant makes. The right choice between appealing and submitting a fresh application now depends almost entirely on the state of your application file, because for most applications made since April 2026 an appeal is decided on the material that was before the council, and nothing new can be added.
When an appeal is the right route
Appeal when you submitted a strong application and the council refused it without good reason. If your drawings were clear, your planning statement made the case properly, any technical questions were dealt with while the application was live, and the refusal rests on a judgement call about character or neighbour impact that you believe is wrong, an appeal puts that judgement in front of an independent inspector. Around 40% of appeals succeed nationally, and refusals of sensible householder schemes are among the most commonly overturned. Councils lean heavily on their own guidance and dislike making exceptions; inspectors take a broader view.
When a fresh application is the right route
Reapply when the refusal identifies a problem you can fix. If the council objects to the depth of the extension and you can live with a smaller one, revise and resubmit. Reapply, too, when the honest assessment is that your application file is thin: no planning statement, no response to the objections, a missing daylight or highways report. Under the old system a good consultant could repair much of that in the appeal statement. That repair work is no longer possible, so the sensible course is to build the file properly through a new application and give yourself a case an inspector could actually allow if it comes to a future appeal.
Bear in mind that reapplying is no longer free. The old ‘free go’ resubmission has been abolished and application fees have risen sharply, which is one more reason to make the second application count.
You can still do both
Appealing and reapplying at the same time remains a perfectly legitimate strategy. You can submit a revised application to the council while appealing the original refusal, and neither should prejudice the other. With 12 weeks to appeal a householder refusal and six months for most other applications, there is usually time to take advice before the deadline forces your hand.
The trap to avoid
The expensive mistake under the new rules is appealing on a weak file. The inspector sees what the council saw. If the case for permission was never properly made, the appeal will be dismissed however unfair the refusal feels, and you will have spent months getting nowhere. When we review a refusal we look at the file first and tell you frankly which route we would take, even when that means talking ourselves out of an appeal fee.
Send us your decision notice and we will review it for free, explain your chances, and set out the next steps clearly, whichever route is right.
