Bromley Council is considering establishing a dedicated budget for planning appeals in FY2025/26, according to a report presented at the Development Control Committee meeting on Thursday 27 November 2025.

The report highlighted the increasing financial risks associated with defending planning inquiries and the need to mitigate these risks through a dedicated budget. The source of funding for the dedicated planning appeals budget is indicated as Existing budget in the Planning Appeals Update report.

Currently, there is no specific budget allocated for defending appeals. The Planning Appeals Update report mentions that a future report will explore the possibility of creating an appeals budget for the next financial year to address this gap. The exact size of the proposed dedicated budget is not specified in the meeting information.

The report also provided an analysis of appeal decisions from FY2024/25, including a breakdown by quarter and appeal type (fast track, written, hearing, inquiry). It compared Bromley's appeal performance with neighbouring boroughs, showing that Bromley is performing in line with the majority of those authorities.

According to the report, the government measures councils on their performance in relation to their 'speed' and 'quality' of decision making. The quality of decision making is based upon the percentage of 'major' and 'non major' applications allowed at appeal as a proportion of applications determined by the Council.

Other key points from the Planning Appeals Update report:

  • The number of planning appeals lodged has remained relatively steady at between 240 and 253 over the period of FY22/23 to FY24/25.
  • In FY24/25, of the 189 appeal decisions issued by the Planning Inspectorate (PINs), 57 appeals were allowed, 173 were in relation to delegated decisions and 16 were by committee decisions.
  • The greatest number of appeals allowed were in Bromley Common & Holwood, Darwin, Penge & Cator and Petts Wood & Knoll wards.
  • The graph indicates a steady improvement in the success rate of the Appeals Service over recent years. This serves as an important indicator of the quality of the Council's planning decision-making.
  • The Planning team also schedule regular meetings to review appeal decisions, in particular those which have been allowed to see if there are areas where improvements can be made to decision making. These meetings also review other key aspects of appeal decisions including uptake of new SPD guidance, interpretation of new national or regional policy and focus on exemplar appeal decisions that could be applied by officers in their assessment of similar cases.

The Development Control Committee also noted a Planning Inspectorate (PINs) update. PINs is in the process of replacing its Appeals Casework Portal with a new casework management system. The changes to PINs case management system is likely to have an impact on the way Councillors are notified. According to the Planning Appeals Update report, going forward, to account for the changes to validation made by PINs, ward members will be required to advise whether their comments made at application stage should be forwarded to the Planning Inspectorate in the event an appeal is lodged in the future.

On 25 June 2025 the Planning Inspectorate announced changes to the appeals process to introduce simplified (Fasttrack) appeal procedures for the majority of appeals currently decided by Written Representations. Under the new procedures the majority of Written Representations appeals will be processed on the basis of information submitted during the application only.