Planning applications and your parish council agenda

Planning is the item that fills most parish council agendas, runs to the tightest deadline, and generates the most correspondence from residents who think the council decides applications.

Here's what your council's rights actually are, what the deadline is, and what changes at the end of October 2026.

England only. General guidance, not legal advice.

You have to ask to be told

The right to be notified isn't automatic. It comes from the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, Schedule 1, paragraph 8:

"A local planning authority who have the function of determining applications for planning permission or permission in principle shall, if requested to do so by the council of any parish situated in their area, notify the council of- (a) any relevant planning application; and (b) any alteration to that application accepted by the authority."

The request must be in writing, and must say whether you want all relevant applications or only applications of a specified description (paragraph 8(3)).

Two practical points. First, if nobody can find the letter, make the request again and file it - the duty only exists once the request has been made. Second, you can ask for everything or just for a category of applications, but a narrow request means the applications outside it never reach you.

One exception. A parish council authorised to act in relation to a neighbourhood area with a relevant neighbourhood development plan is notified automatically, and has to opt out in writing if it doesn't want to be (paragraphs 8(3A)–(3D)).

You may also see the old citation, LGA 1972 Schedule 16 paragraph 20. That provision is repealed - it was re-enacted as TCPA 1990 Schedule 1 paragraph 8. Don't cite it in correspondence.

Then you have 21 days

Once notified, the timetable comes from the Development Management Procedure Order 2015, article 25:

"…they must, as soon as practicable, notify the local planning authority who are determining the application whether they propose to make any representations about the manner in which the application should be determined, and must make any representations to that authority within 21 days of the notification to them of the application."

The planning authority must not determine the application before you've said you have nothing to say, or made your representations, or the 21 days have run out - whichever happens first (article 25(2)).

If you miss it, nothing stops the application. There's no extension and no sanction. In practice an authority will usually still consider late comments as a material consideration, but it is under no article 25 duty to wait for them.

This deadline is the single biggest driver of how parish agendas are built. Twenty-one days doesn't line up with a monthly meeting cycle, which is why most councils either hold a planning committee with its own calendar or delegate a response to the clerk in consultation with members. Whichever you use, it needs to be in your scheme of delegation, not improvised.

Your comments must be taken into account by the planning authority

Article 25(2) ends: "in determining the application the authority must take into account any representations received from the council of the parish."

Three limits worth being straight with residents about:

• "Take into account" is not "agree with". An authority that considers your objection and grants permission anyway has done what the law requires.
• The duty is on the local planning authority - the district, borough, unitary or National Park authority. Not on the applicant, not on the Secretary of State.
• It's tied to the notification. A parish council that never made the paragraph 8 request has no article 25 rights; its comments are weighed like anyone else's, as a material consideration under TCPA 1990 s.70(2).

The authority must also tell you the outcome - the terms of the decision, or the fact and date of any referral to the Secretary of State (article 25(3)).

What a parish council cannot do

You cannot veto an application. The determination belongs to the planning authority. Your statutory rights are notification, the 21-day window, the duty on the authority to take your representations into account, and being told the result. That's the complete list.

You cannot call it in. Call-in is the Secretary of State's power under TCPA 1990 s.77, and nothing in it gives a parish council a right to trigger it. You can lobby; that's all.

What changes on 31 October 2026

This is the part to bring to your council now.

Many parish councils rely on a local convention: if the parish council objects, the application goes to the planning committee rather than being decided by an officer. That convention sits in the planning authority's own scheme of delegation, and a national scheme is about to replace large parts of it.

The Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026 were made on 15 July 2026 and come into force on 31 October 2026.

To be clear about who they bind: they apply to "relevant local planning authorities", and a parish council is not a local planning authority. Nothing in them imposes a duty on you. What changes is how your district or unitary council must handle applications - which is what the local convention depended on. Under them:

• Applications in Schedule 1 to the Regulations - householder applications among them - must be determined by an officer (regulation 4).
• Applications in Schedule 2 go to an officer unless the authority's nominated member and nominated officer agree to refer them to a committee, on the basis that they raise "one or more issues of economic, social or environmental significance to the local area" or "one or more significant planning matters" (regulation 5).
• A committee determining an application under these arrangements may have no more than 13 members (regulation 7).

The words "parish", "objection" and "representation" do not appear anywhere in the Regulations. A parish council objection is not a trigger for referral to committee. The only route is agreement between the authority's nominated member and nominated officer.

What that means for you, from 31 October 2026:

• A householder application you object to will be decided by an officer, whatever your local convention has been.
• For larger applications, the argument to make is no longer "the parish objects" but "this raises an issue of significance to the local area" - which is the test the nominated member and officer have to apply. Write your representations in those terms.
• It's worth asking your district or unitary council now how it is implementing the Regulations, and what happens to any local agreement you have with it.

Getting planning onto your agenda without drowning

• Give each application its own numbered item, with reference, address and a one-line description. It makes the minutes usable and lets you record a different decision on each.
• Resolve in the language the authority uses - object, support, no objection - with reasons that are planning reasons. "The council objects because of overlooking of the rear elevation of No 14 and loss of off-street parking" carries weight. "The council objects because residents are unhappy" does not.
• Record the vote, and record any member who declared an interest and withdrew. Planning is where interests bite hardest.
• Watch the clock, not the cycle. Put the 21-day deadline in the item, so everyone can see which applications must be answered before the next meeting.

Our parish council agenda template shows the item laid out, and the minutes template shows how to minute a planning decision including a split vote and a declared interest.

If the tracking is the painful part, that's what software is for: in CouncilPapers planning items can be imported rather than retyped, each carries its own reference and deadline, and past decisions on a site are searchable at item level rather than buried in PDFs. Book a demo.

Last reviewed 26 September 2026. General guidance for councils in England, not legal advice.