Government of Jersey

Independent Appeals of the Planning department (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey and published on 28 April 2023.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

How many times and for how many years has [name redacted] been an independent appeals adjudicator for Jersey Planning Department and how many appeals has he overturned in the appellants favour?

Are all the cases he has presided over in the public domain?

Response

This request refers to a named individual who is a planning inspector in Jersey. For planning appeals planning inspectors work with the Tribunal Service which is part of the Judicial Greffe. In Jersey planning inspectors have no planning decision making power, so are not able to overturn any planning decisions which are appealed. They have substantial powers to manage inspection procedures to ensure their investigations are thorough and independent. The outcome of their inspection is a report to the Minister with recommendations as to how an appeal should be decided, but the decision on the appeal is made by the Minister or substitute.

Planning appeals are governed by Part 7 of the Planning and Building (Jersey) Law 2002. Within Part 7, Article 116(1) states:

(1) Having considered the inspector’s report under Article 115, the Minister shall determine the appeal, and in so doing shall give effect to the inspector’s recommendation unless the Minister is satisfied that there are reasons not to do so.

Planning and Building (Jersey) Law 2002 (jerseylaw.je)

In response to this request no planning inspector (adjudicator) has overturned any planning decisions because it is the Minister that determines all planning appeals. There are no instances in Jersey where a planning inspector has made a planning decision on appeal.

All Ministerial Decisions are published on www.gov.je . Using the search box on that page it is possible to search for the name of any planning inspector and retrieve all decisions for which they provided a report going back to the beginning of the current planning appeals system using independent planning inspectors in 2015. Please see the following link:

Ministerial Decisions (gov.je)