How do I speed up the planning department’s decision making?

We put in an application with our local authority nine months ago, but we are still none the wiser as to whether our proposal is going to be successful or not. The council has so far requested three official extensions, which we have agreed to. We have emailed several senior people within the department, but we are only met with silence or excuses. Do we carry on and just try and be patient, or is there anything we can do to help speed this process up?

As a planning consultant I too am frequently frustrated by untenable delays in council decision making. It may be of little comfort that this phenomenon is quite common, and even less that there’s not a lot that can be done about it. Contacting a more senior officer is a good first step. Where this yields no answers, approaching your local councillor can result in progress, but much depends on the individual’s willingness to take up your cause. It is possible to appeal against non-determination, which moves the application out of the local authority’s hands. at, though, puts your submission into the six month long appeals process, which doesn’t exactly speed things up. I can only suggest you keep pushing, as firmly as you can!