Appeals Statistics

[Alan Ambrose]

I have been doing a little research on appeals. Let me note some data here, for anyone else on BH to find:

 

Overall national averages for speed of LPA appeal decisions. We're looking at the 1st category "Planning appeals by written representations" - so around 27 weeks atm.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/performance-update-july-2023

 

LPA performance at appeal. % appeals 'allowed' (i.e. appellant won / LPA lost) by LPA district. We're looking at s78 appeals here. Quite a big range. Note that anything over 10% is considered ripe for 'special measures'.

 

https://appealfinder.co.uk/Local-planning-authority-success-rates.p19.html

 

Named inspector performance at appeal. i.e. what % does each inspector allow. A big range here also.

 

https://appealfinder.co.uk/planning_inspectorate_appeals_search.p15.html

 

Central Government limits for 'special measures'. The limits for when an LPA goes into 'special measures'. We're looking at 'non-major' developments here. The current limits are <70% LPA decisions completed within 8 weeks (or agreed time). And/or >10% decisions overturned on appeal.

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1112048/Improving_planning_performance_2022_WEB.pdf

 

[kandgmitchell]

Well I've got an appeal against the refusal of a lawful development certificate that had a start date of 14th November 2022. All the various written reps were back by the deadline in February 2023. We are now waiting for an Inspector's visit some 7 months on. Requests for an update are met with a standard "we will be in touch" response. A tad more than 27 weeks then........

[joe90]

As many here know I went to appeal, (and won)  can’t remember how many weeks but they were more than helpful (far more helpful than the bl00dy planner’s were). 

[Alan Ambrose]

@kandgmitchell

 

If you follow the links, you'll see that 27 weeks is the median, these graphs give as indication of the spread:

 

https://appealfinder.co.uk/Planning-appeal-success-rates-and-timescales.n48.html

 

Here is the list of the dodgiest LPAs - i.e. the ones that lose the highest % of appeals:

 

https://appealfinder.co.uk/LPAs-with-the-worst-planning-appeal-success-rates-in-2022-23.n61.html

 

I'm not sure how appealfinder gets this data, presumably they have a deal with the appeals portal. Or they may just scrape the data from the ACP search facility.

 

There's also meant to be a new government system coming up, with the old one (ACP) closing down, see:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-appeal-a-planning-decision-service-streamlines-and-enhances-the-process

 

- but I couldn't actually see a link to the new system anywhere. Ah, apparently only Hillingdon and Bradford LPAs are testing it.