Planning Appeals
A refusal of planning permission is not the end of the road.
Only 20% of planning refusals are appealed, yet most appeals we take on are successful. If your council has refused permission and the decision feels unfair, we can help you challenge it — quickly, professionally, and with a strong chance of success.
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Backed by hundreds of 5-star reviews from happy homeowners and developers.
Hundreds of Successful Appeals
From extensions and conversions to complex enforcement cases, we’ve helped clients achieve planning success.
Led by Chartered Planners
RTPI-accredited consultants with over a decade of public and private sector experience.
Why Appeal?
Most refusals can be challenged, and it's usually a quick and painless process.
Council planning officers work hard, but their decisions aren’t always fair. Policies are applied too rigidly, context is misunderstood and some refusals are simply wrong.
Appealing gives you access to an independent planning inspector, someone with no connection to your local council. Appeals are decided in a few months and are free to submit. In most cases there are no meetings or hearings to attend; we manage everything for you.
How Our Appeal Process Works
A clear process designed to get results
1. Free Case Review
The rules changed in April 2026 – most appeals are now simpler and quicker.
For most applications submitted since 1 April 2026, an appeal is decided on the material that was before the council when it refused permission. Nothing new can be added later: no appeal statement, no fresh reports, no comparable permissions the council never saw, no redesign.
So our first step is to take a close look at your application file. We review the officer’s report, the drawings, the planning policies and any constraints affecting your site, and we work out whether the council’s decision was fair.
If we think an appeal is worth pursuing, we’ll outline the steps involved and give you a transparent, fixed-fee quote. If it isn’t, we’ll tell you so, and we’ll usually recommend a revised application instead. No pressure, no false promises.
2. Grounds of Appeal
For most appeals there is no longer an appeal statement. But you still need to draft your grounds of appeal.
Under the new procedure, your case is put to the inspector in a short set of grounds of appeal, around 250 words, on the appeal form itself. Writing them is a discipline: we examine the planning history of your property, the council’s reasoning and the officer’s report, identify where the officer has misinterpreted policy, overlooked material considerations or simply made an incorrect judgement, and then direct the inspector straight to the strongest points in your file. There is no room for waffle – every word has to earn its place.
3. Submission & Management
Once your grounds are agreed, we take care of everything.
We submit the appeal, complete the necessary documentation, respond to anything the Inspectorate raises and keep your case moving until the decision is issued. The inspector will usually carry out a brief site visit, which you don’t need to prepare for. Most appeals are decided without a hearing, and there is little for you to do but await the decision.
4. When a Full Appeal Statement Is Still Needed
The old procedure hasn’t disappeared, and some appeals still need a full appeal statement.
Some appeals still involve a complete written statement of case: appeals against enforcement notices, refusals of lawful development certificates, listed building cases, appeals where the council failed to decide in time, anything that goes to a hearing or inquiry, and appeals on applications submitted before 1 April 2026. For those, we prepare a comprehensive, evidence-led statement in the usual way — it is work we have done hundreds of times, and it is where our experience as former council planners makes a difference.
Why Choose Us?
We specialise in planning appeals and we win hundreds every year.
We are one of the UK’s leading planning appeals consultancies, with success rates well above the national average. Our chartered planning consultants prepare robust, evidence-led cases that give you the strongest possible chance of overturning a refusal.
We handle every part of the process — reviewing your file, drafting your grounds or your appeal statement, liaising with the Inspectorate and keeping your case moving quickly. Our fees are fixed and transparent, and your first assessment is completely free.
Frequently asked questions
Who decides planning appeals?
Planning appeals in England and Wales are decided by the Planning Inspectorate, a central government agency based in Bristol. The inspectorate is entirely separate from local councils. When you appeal, an independent inspector is appointed to consider your case and make a decision.
The Planning Inspectorate has published a guide to the planning appeal process – available here.
What kinds of appeals are there?
You can appeal against a refusal of planning permission, a refusal of an application for a Certificate of Lawfulness (also known as a Lawful Development Certificate) or an Enforcement Notice. You can also appeal if you have submitted an application and the council has not made a decision in time (usually within 8 weeks).
Finally, you can also appeal against conditions that have been attached to an approval of planning permission.
How did the appeal process change in April 2026?
For most planning applications submitted on or after 1 April 2026, appeals now follow what the Planning Inspectorate calls the Part One written representations procedure. There is no appeal statement. You submit the appeal form with short grounds of appeal, and the inspector decides the case on the documents that were before the council when it made its decision. You cannot introduce new evidence, new arguments or revised drawings at the appeal stage.
The practical effect is that your planning application has to do the arguing for you. If there is something you would want an inspector to know, it needs to be in the application file before the council decides. We have written more about this in our guides to the new rules and planning statements.
Appeals on applications submitted before 1 April 2026, enforcement appeals and several other categories still follow the old, fuller procedure.
For a full walk-through of the new process, from refusal to decision, read our guide: How does a planning appeal work under the new rules?
Do I still need an appeal statement?
For most refusals of planning permission, no. The appeal form and your grounds of appeal are the whole submission.
You still need a full statement for enforcement notice appeals, lawful development certificate appeals, listed building cases, non-determination appeals and anything dealt with by a hearing or inquiry — and for appeals on applications submitted before 1 April 2026. We prepare statements for all of these. Our guide to writing an appeal statement explains when one is still required.
How much does an appeal cost?
Appeals to the Planning Inspectorate are free. There is no fee payable to the government, except in the case of some enforcement appeals.
If you would like us to act on your behalf, we will review your case for free, give you an honest view of your prospects and quote a fixed fee for preparing, submitting and managing the appeal. Because the new procedure involves much less written work than the old one, our fees for most appeals against a refusal of planning permission are now considerably lower than they used to be. Cases that still require a full appeal statement — enforcement appeals in particular — involve more work, and the fee reflects that.
We charge fixed fees rather than hourly rates, agreed upfront before any work is undertaken, so you know in advance what the process will cost.
What is the appeal process?
Most appeals are decided through written representations. Under the current rules that means the inspector reads the application file, the council’s reasons for refusal and your grounds of appeal, and reaches a decision on the papers.
The inspector will usually carry out a brief site visit. The site visit is purely for the inspector to see the site and is not an opportunity for either side to make its case.
The appeal process is generally straightforward and stress free. Our consultants handle all correspondence and there is little for you to do. You may need to provide access for the site visit but can otherwise just await the decision.
What is your success rate?
Around 40% of appeals are successful.
40% might not seem like a high proportion, but it means that the planners are getting their refusals wrong almost half the time.
We are one of England’s leading planning appeal consultancies and we win around 70% of the appeals we undertake.
A lot of appeals are submitted without professional advice and without much chance of success. Some appeals are speculative and deserve to fail. A strong application, refused without good reason and backed by well-aimed grounds of appeal, stands a very good chance of success.
We will not take on your appeal if we don’t think you can win.
How long does it take?
We aim to have your appeal ready for you to review within two weeks of getting your instructions, and usually sooner now that the procedure involves less paperwork.
The appeal itself will take several months to be decided. The Planning Inspectorate publishes up-to-date average timescales on its website.
What is the time limit for appealing?
If your application was for extensions to a house, you have 12 weeks to appeal from the date you received the decision. For non-householder applications, you have 6 months in which to appeal.
There is no deadline for appealing Certificate of Lawfulness decisions.
If the council has not made a decision, you have six months to appeal from the date on which they should have made that decision.
There are strict deadlines for appealing Enforcement Notices – check our enforcement page for more details.
Is it better to resubmit my application before appealing?
You shouldn’t rush to appeal. You should only appeal when you submitted a strong application and the council has refused it without good reason.
This matters more under the current rules, because the inspector will only see what the council saw. If your application was thin — no planning statement, no supporting evidence, drawings that undersold the scheme — an appeal is unlikely to rescue it, and a revised application is almost always the better route. If the application was strong and the council still refused it, appeal.
When you receive your refusal, look closely at it and work out whether the council’s decision is fair. Contact our consultants for advice on whether we think the decision adds up.
We have written a full guide to this decision: Should you appeal or reapply after a planning refusal?
Will appealing harm my relationship with the council?
Will my neighbours be notified?
When you submit an appeal, the council notifies the neighbours who commented on your application. For most appeals under the current rules, their original comments are passed to the inspector but they have no right to comment again at the appeal stage.
For larger appeals dealt with under the fuller procedure, they are entitled to write in with their comments (but neighbour objections do not matter as much as you might think).
Will I have to appear in person or give evidence?
Usually not. The overwhelming majority of appeals are decided entirely in writing, with no in-person discussion of the case.
Some appeals do go to a hearing or public inquiry — usually larger or more complicated schemes, or enforcement cases where the issues need to be explored in person. If your case is heading that way, we will tell you at the outset, prepare the case fully and guide you through the hearing itself.
Do I really need a planning consultant? Can I do this myself?
You can submit your own appeal, but it is not usually a good idea — and the new rules have changed where the skill lies. With only a few hundred words to play with, the job is knowing which points will move an inspector and which will waste the space.
All of our consultants are chartered town planners and all have worked in local council planning departments, making planning decisions. They know if, and how, a refusal of planning permission can be overturned.
If you would like to submit your own appeal, check out Chapter 5 of Martin Gaine’s book, How to Get Planning Permission: An Insider’s Secrets. It was written before the April 2026 changes, so its advice on writing a full Appeal Statement now applies to enforcement and other fuller-procedure cases, but its advice on how to argue a planning case holds good for any appeal.
Will you tell me honestly if I don't have a good chance at appeal?
We give honest advice on whether or not an appeal is likely to succeed in each individual case. We never take on appeals that we don’t think have at least a 60% chance of success, and we advise hundreds of enquirers every year that an appeal is not a good idea in their case.
Under the current rules that honesty is worth even more, because if your application file doesn’t already make your case, the right advice is usually a better application rather than a doomed appeal.
Can I appeal a refusal and resubmit the application at the same time?
Won't the appeal inspector just back up the council's decision?
Appeal inspectors are entirely independent of your local council and will reach their own decision. They are in no way biased towards the council or your neighbours or any other third parties.
They work for a central government agency, rather than local councils, and have a different perspective from case officers. They are less likely to be influenced by local politics and they pay close attention to the government’s national planning guidance, such as the need to built new homes and to allow existing homeowners to extend their homes.
Why do the planners get it wrong? Why do they refuse applications unfairly?
Councils refuse applications unfairly all the time. Around 40% of planning appeals are successful, suggesting that the planners get it wrong pretty often. Why is that?
One reason is that they are overworked and underpaid and usually decide applications on the very last day (of the usual 8 week deadline for decisions). This means that their assessment can be rushed and mistakes made.
Also, much planning decision making is subjective. The planner might not like some aspect of your design, but someone else might find it acceptable.
The planners are also inclined to follow their published guidance very closely – they don’t like making exceptions to their rules. If the guidance says that they won’t usually grant permission for a side extension (for example), they will automatically refuse even if a side extension is justified in your case (because it is hidden away from the streetcar your neighbour already has one, for example).
What happens if we lose?
If you appeal is dismissed (refused), do not despair. We will work through the inspector’s decision with you to work out what parts of your proposal they were happy were and what they disliked.
Sometimes, a refused appeal can still be a step forward towards an approval, perhaps through a revised planning application to the council.
Do you offer a 'no win, no fee' service?
No, we have a simple, fixed-fee charging structure. We ask that clients pay half of our fee upfront and the remainder when their appeal is ready to be submitted. It is transparent – you will know exactly what you have to pay.
Beware of ‘no win, no fee’ services – some companies submit poor quality appeals in a hope that they might, by some chance, be successful, and they can cash in a large fee. For them, it is a numbers game. Since no fee is paid upfront, they feel under no particular obligation to a do a good job.
Need planning advice?
Tell us about your case.
Fill in the form below and we will come back with the best way forward and a fixed-fee quote for handling it. If your application has been refused, or you have received an enforcement notice, send over the paperwork and our initial advice is free.
If you prefer to email, we can be reached at info@just-planning.co.uk.