The Planning Inspectorate has announced its digital appeals service is to be rolled out to all local planning authorities in England as part of ongoing digitalisation of planning processes.
The national launch follows a successful pilot which has seen the scheme be trialled in five London boroughs: Barnet, Greenwich, Havering, Richmond upon Thames, and Bromley, who have been handling both householder appeals (fast-track cases) and section 78 (full planning) appeals through the system. All authorities in England will join the service by December 2025, with a second cohort of local authorities opting in early by the end of July.
The new service aims to streamline the process for the submission and management of planning appeals, as well as improve communication between parties by reducing paper-based processes.
The shift to a digital process for planning appeals is part of an ongoing digitalisation of the planning system as part of the Government’s efforts to speed up the planning process and accelerate delivery of new homes.
Earlier this year, Government announced the launch of a new AI tool, Extract, developed by government with support from Google. The tool will help councils convert handwritten planning documents and maps into data, and will power new software to minimise the 250,000 hours spent annually by planning officers nationwide manually checking documents. The tool is expected to be made available to all councils by Spring 2026
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