Appeal questionnaires

Before you complete a questionnaire online, please review our advice on electronic submissions.

If you haven't submitted a questionnaire online before, you might like to go through our Tutorial.

Accessing the online questionnaire

To access the facility to complete and submit the appeal questionnaire online, use the Search for cases facility.

You can enter the reference of the appeal (starting 'APP') into the 'Case reference' field and then select 'Search for cases' at the bottom of the screen - you just need to put in the unique number from the end of the reference eg 2000569 .  This will bring up the Search Results and you can click on the reference number displayed to get to a Case Summary for the appeal.  At the bottom of that screen will be a link to a Documents page, and from there you can select the 'Submit a questionnaire' link.

This facility is protected and you will need an ID and password.  The Planning Inspectorate will be contacting each local authority to ensure that they have this information.  You can also obtain it by e-mailing us at pcs@pins.gsi.gov.uk or contacting Natasha Perrett on 0117 372 8842.

Supporting documents

The facility provides the opportunity for supporting documents to be attached to the questionnaire itself where they are available in electronic format - but please see our advice on electronic submissions.  Otherwise, they can follow by post, or you can send them to the Case Officer's e-mail address quoted on the appeal Start letter. Please ensure that you quote the appeal reference when sending in documents by post or e-mail.

There may be times when you need or want to send us more than you can attach to the form.  Additional documents can be sent by e-mail to the e-mail address on our Start letter.  Please ensure that the appeal reference is quoted clearly.

Printing the form

The form is NOT designed to be printed before it is submitted online.  However, if you wish to do so, please change the settings to print in landscape, or some of the form will not print.

Before you submit the completed form

Once the online form has been completed, we recommend that you use the 'Save partially completed form' facility (see below) in case there is a problem with your submission.  You can then Resume the appeal and click on the 'Submit' button at the bottom.

Save partially completed form (NB This facility will NOT save any attachments)

To save a partially completed form, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on the 'Save partially completed form' button.  The screen will change to display the following:

From there, you MUST use the facilities of your Browser to save.  The questionnaire has not been saved simply by clicking on the 'Save partially completed form' button.  eg For Internet Explorer users, select 'File' then 'Save as'.  You then need to decide where to save the file - on a floppy disk, or your network etc.  The file name and file type will have been set automatically.

Returning to a saved Questionnaire

When you want to start work again on a saved Questionnaire, open the file.  You will see the following:

Click on the 'Resume' button.  You will then need to add back in any necessary attachments.

What happens after you submit the form

When you click on the 'Submit' button, the information on the form will be checked and any problems will be highlighted to you can correct them or supply missing information.

If all the information is OK, any supporting documents that have been attached will then be checked and uploaded.  Any problems arising from the checks will also be highlighted.

If all is then OK, an on-screen receipt will be displayed.  This will have a link to the formatted version of the questionnaire, so you will be able to download a PDF version of the file.  This file can then be saved into your own system, e-mailed to the appellant/agent if they are accepting documents electronically, or printed and posted to them.