Under the Freedom of Information Act (2000), I request the following information from your authority in 20 working days please:
Please can you provide the following information about each planning appeal cost award or partial cost award made for or against your council (including information for any now-defunct councils that have been merged into your council) by planning inspectors between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2024:
• Date of cost award decision
• Date of appeal decision letter (if different to date of costs award decision)
• Was the award for or against your council?
• Has the amount of the cost award been determined (yes/no)?
• Amount of sum (if determined) negotiated between the applicant and council for cost award (£)
• Was the decision that was the subject of the appeal made against officer recommendation (yes/no)?
• PINS case reference number
Please note that we are asking about planning appeal cost awards only, and not, for example, awards that relate to enforcement or householder appeals.
It would be much appreciated if you could, where possible, provide information in the format set out in the attached spreadsheet.
This is similar to a request we made in 2023, in which we asked for data for the five years to March 2023. In response to our 2023 FOI, your authority gave us data relating to the following appeal PINS references, for which we do not need further information:
Not applicable (because our records show that there were no appeals about which your authority in 2023 provided all the information requested in the above fields)
We have identified the following additional planning appeal PINS references as likely to relate to successful costs claims over the period, and therefore relevant to this request:
APP/T0355/W/20/3252103
APP/T0355/W/22/3295154
APP/T0355/W/22/3296594
The above may not be a comprehensive list of relevant appeals over the period, and is merely intended to aid your response. Therefore, if no appeals are listed above, this does not necessarily mean that your authority was not involved in any successful costs claims over the six year period.