The Town and Country Planning (Appeals) (Written Representations Procedure) (England) Regulations 2000

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

Section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 confers a right of appeal against certain planning decisions of the local planning authority and against cases where the local planning authority fails to notify such a planning decision within the prescribed periods.

An appellant and local planning authority are entitled in any appeal proceedings to appear before and be heard by a person appointed by the Secretary of State but they may agree to the appeal being determined on the basis of written representations and supporting documents.

These Regulations lay down the procedure and time limits in connection with appeals to be disposed of on the basis of written representations. They revoke and replace, with amendments, the Town and Country Planning (Appeals) (Written Representations Procedure) Regulations 1987, which are revoked in relation to England only subject to the transitional provisions in regulation 12.

The main changes made by the Regulations are—

(a) the local planning authority must notify statutory consultees and interested persons of the appeal within 2 weeks of the starting date and the power to make confidential representations has been removed (regulation 5);

(b) strict time limits for the submission of representations and further comments on representations have been imposed. The Secretary of State is required to forward copies of representations and comments to the other parties as soon as practicable after receipt (regulation);

(c) time limits are extended for notified interested parties to submit representations to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State has the power to disregard comments made by the local planning authority on interested persons representations where the local planning authority has not notified interested persons correctly (regulation 8);

(d) the Secretary of State is given power to disregard written representations not submitted within the relevant time limits (regulation 10);

(e) where an appeal has resulted from a direction of the Mayor of London to refuse an application the Mayor is to be given opportunity to make representations and comment on representations within the relevant time limits, in the same way as the local planning authority and appellant (regulation 11).

A Regulatory Impact Appraisal has been prepared in relation to the Regulations. It has been placed in the Library of each House of Parliament and copies may be obtained from PD3B, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Eland House, Bressenden Place, London SW1E 5DU (Telephone [phone]).