Planning appeals are taking longer to be decided than at any time since the last lockdown, according to recent data released by the Planning Inspectorate (PINS). Applicants are now waiting nearly 24 weeks on average to hear the outcome of their appeal. The same data also suggests that more and more homes are being granted planning permission via appeal, giving PINS a larger role in shaping housing supply.

In the first three months of 2020, it took 20 weeks on average for PINS to decide appeals. Following the first lockdown, decision times started to increase considerably. The longest wait came in November, when the average appeal took nearly 27 weeks to reach an outcome. Things started to improve in 2021, as the backlog was cleared; the median time fell back to 19 weeks in March.

But over the summer, as the rest of society opened up, the appeals system started slowing down again. The overall number of applications reaching PINS has remained fairly steady, but the inspectorate is taking longer to process them. The number of decisions slumped to just over 1,200 in August, compared with 1,600-2,000 decisions issued monthly pre-pandemic. Meanwhile the number of open cases is growing, and the average applicant is back to waiting nearly 24 weeks to receive an outcome.

PINS’ own report suggests some possible causes of the slowdown. One claim is that many complex enforcement inquiry cases were finally being decided. But fewer large schemes, which are a good proxy for more complex and time-consuming appeals, were being settled. Only three inquiry cases affecting sites of more than 400 units were decided across July and August 2021, compared with three in June and four in March.

Another cause might be ongoing difficulties in holding decision events, but the winding down of virtual PINS planning events (which fell from 106 in March to just 26 in August) is unlikely to have affected the overwhelming majority of appeals, which are determined by written representations.

Appeals and housing supply

All this matters because the share of new homes gaining consent through appeal has been growing for several years. The first half of 2021 saw approximately 9 per cent of all consents delivered by appeal, up from just four per cent in 2018. If this holds for the rest of the year, it would be the highest proportion of new homes gaining consent through appeal since 2016.

This increase does not appear to be driven by more appeal decisions, which remain below historical average. Nor has the size of sites winning consent on appeal gone up: there were 24 successful appeals for sites of over 200 units in the year to November 2021, exactly in line with the average for the previous three calendar years, according to data from Compass.

Instead, the number of new homes gaining consent through appeal has remained static while non-appeal consents have fallen, thus growing the share of consents coming out of the appeal process.

The result is that unless the pace picks up (or non-appeal consents start increasing again), the inspectorate’s growing role in deciding how many sites gain consent, combined with slowing performance, will exacerbate the stagnation in new homes gaining consent in England.  

Resourcing the planning system

A major challenge for the planning process is resourcing. Not included in the PINS report is the problem of how long it can take for an appeal to be assigned an inspector once valid. For example, we are dealing with one case submitted as written representations which was still waiting for an inspector to be assigned 12 weeks after validation.

This is not unique to PINS, of course. We are seeing overloaded planning officers, delays to validation and immediate requests for extensions of time due to a lack of resourcing. The increased use of technology and digital methods that could have presented from Covid-19 haven’t really materialised and in some cases, remote working and people not being in the office is a hindrance not a help.

Digitising the planning system was a central proposition in last year’s Planning White Paper. But with a new Secretary of State and uncertainty over planning reform, it is unclear when those proposals might become reality.

Further information

Contact Dan Formston or Alison Broderick

Savills Planning