We assist individuals and residents’ groups to influence the outcome of planning applications at the local planning authority (LPA) level through carefully drafted planning objections, often supported with input from experts e.g. in areas of heritage and landscape harm, adverse traffic impacts, risk to ecology and biodiversity, or unacceptable flood risk.

At this stage in the development consent process, our instructions come from individuals and local communities seeking to persuade the LPA to refuse a planning application. This is a critical first opportunity for residents to be heard on developments they consider unacceptable due to anticipated impacts on their environment, their community or individual harm from loss of amenity, loss of light etc. Our clients benefit from guidance on how to present a forceful and credible objection.

Individuals and groups are often looking for assistance in identifying issues and relevant legislation, local plan policies, or national planning guidance like the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) that can encourage or even compel a planning officer or planning committee to refuse consent. We sometimes also work with experts who provide input or assessments/reports to identify flaws in the developer’s supporting information. This expert work enables us to establish through representations a different understanding of the risk of planning harm from a development proposal, which can often be downplayed by developers in their supporting information.

A key step leading up to the planning committee meeting is our review of the planning officer’s report to the committee or planning board before the matter is determined. We can help to make representations on the officer’s report and are often instructed to speak at committee meetings on behalf of our clients.

The value of instructions at this stage is (at least) three-fold: (1) a refusal by the LPA avoids the need to fund a Judicial Review, (2) a decision by the LPA to refuse consent because the planning harms outweigh the benefits of a scheme makes it more difficult for the application to proceed without modification or redesign to make it more acceptable to the local community, and (3) even if the application is approved, having raised key points before a decision was made can strengthen a subsequent judicial review challenge by ensuring that legal or policy points were properly before a decisionmaker, even if they were not lawfully considered in granting the permission.

A refusal by a planning committee can lead to a Planning Appeal, where the developer makes an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.