MHCLG and the Planning Inspectorate have announced changes to the Part 1 Written Representations process for appeals. The change is expected to come into effect in late 2025.
The Part 1 Written Representations process was introduced in 2009. Currently, the part 1 process is only used in appeals for householder and minor commercial applications.
MHCLG and the Planning Inspectorate have announced that this will expand to include planning permission, reserved matters, conditions, and prior notification/approval.
As well as expanding which appeals can use the Part 1 process, there will also be procedural changes to written representations. These changes will remove the duplication of, and number of documents required for an appeal. Under these changes, only exceptional cases would allow the submission of new evidence as part of the appeal process.
Submissions will only be required to include a copy of the application, the notice of the local authority’s decision and a brief statement responding to the LPA’s decision and why the appellant disagrees with the LPAs position and outcome.
There will be no final comments stage, the LPAs position would be informed by their report and decision notice already issued, as opposed to the current process whereby the LPA also submit an additional statement or final comments. And no further comments from interested parties will be accepted.
These changes are proposed in order to try and make the process more efficient for both parties. Appellants won’t need to submit extraneous material and planning officers won’t have to publish statements or process comments.
Designed to speed up and unblock the planning process, whilst reducing the duplication at appeal process would be useful, reducing the extra material included in appeals could also impact the outcome at appeal. And with no final comments, consultation at application level would be vital in allowing local residents the opportunity to respond.
The main anticipated issues with the new process is the reduced ability for appellants to respond with further evidence or through appeal statements where the local authority has not communicated with the applicant or allowed for the submission of further information. This may further burden the hearings/inquiry process whereby appellants seek to avoid written representations to allow for the submission of a more detailed case.
This change is expected to come into effect at the end of the year, with additional guidance forthcoming.
Please contact WEA Planning today if you would like to know more bayou the impacts this may have on your project.