From April 2024, people wanting to share their views on planning and enforcement appeals must submit their comments through the Appeals Casework Portal (ACP). Comments will no longer be accepted by email.
For many years people have been encouraged to comment via the web-based ACP. However many still communicated by email.
This resulted in increased administration something that local authorities are keen to avoid in a bid to improve their service offerings.
ACP provides several benefits to the interested party, the Planning Inspectorate and to Councils including:
- Certainty to the interested party that their comments have been received.
- Ensuring personal data, such as email addresses, are not included on the response which reduces redaction requirements for local authorities when publishing public comments on their website.
- Simplifying back-office processes, making the task of handling representations more efficient and less likely comments are missed.
From 1 April interested parties who try to make a comment via email will be directed to the ACP. The email will not be seen by the Inspector handling the appeal. We understand that those with genuine accessibility issues will still be catered for.
On the face of it, this seems like a sensible move provided the ACP is as straightforward to navigate as sending an email would have been.