Planning appeals and other cases: guidance on taking part

Outcomes

Finding out the decision outcome

After the appeal processes are complete, the reporter will prepare and issue a decision notice. This will spell out the terms of the decision and also the reasons for it. The notice will be sent to the appellant and to the planning authority. Everyone who has participated in the appeal will be told about the decision. The decision notice will also be published on the online case file.

The reporter will either ‘allow’ or ‘dismiss’ the appeal.

Allow the appeal -  This might mean granting a consent (for example, giving planning permission), contrary to the planning authority’s earlier decision. Or it could mean that some or all of the grounds of appeal against an enforcement notice have been successful. An appeal can also be ‘Allowed in part’ where some parts of the proposal have been allowed, but others dismissed.

Dismiss the appeal - This means that the appeal has not been successful. So if the appeal was made against a planning authority’s decision to refuse planning permission, the reporter will also have refused permission. And if the appeal was against an enforcement (or similar) notice, then that notice must now be adhered to.

Where Scottish Ministers have ‘called in’ or ‘recalled’ a decision for their own determination or where cases have been referred to DPEA by other Scottish Government departments, the reporter will submit their report of recommendations to Scottish Ministers. Ministers do not have to agree with the reporter’s recommendation. The report is not published at this time. Once the Ministers make their decision, they will inform the parties involved in the case and both the report and decision will be published to the DPEA website at the same time.

Challenging Reporters’ and Scottish Ministers’ Decisions

We have provided guidance on how to challenge Reporters’ and Scottish Ministers’ decisions to the Court of Session