Handling environmental appeals through hearings or local inquiries: code of practice

Hearing sessions and/or inquiry sessions

18. The procedures to be followed in any hearing session or inquiry session are set out in Annexes A and B below.

19. As a general guide to the differences between the two processes, a hearing takes the form of a structured discussion led by the reporter, while an inquiry is normally a more formal event where witnesses give their evidence to the reporter and can be cross-examined by the other parties, and parties have the opportunity to make closing statements.

20. Hearings or inquiries will be held in public unless there are exceptional reasons for them to be held wholly or partly in private, for example, because the appeal involves evidence that is commercially confidential.