Guidance

Appeals casework portal Troubleshooting

The Planning Inspectorate appeals casework portal - Troubleshooting

Applies to Northern Ireland and Scotland

Browser/operating system settings:

  • Ensure that your Internet browser has JavaScript enabled, which is usually the default setting.
  • Ensure that cookies are allowed.
  • Ensure that the web address https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/planning-inspectorate is NOT added to the IE proxy server exceptions. Note – This is normally only applicable to corporate networks.

The Appeals Casework Portal (ACP) is down…

The Appeals Casework Portal will only normally be unavailable when scheduled work is taking place. To find out about scheduled periods of non-availability, please visit the ACP and refer to the notification banner at the bottom of the page.

If you notice that the Appeals Casework Portal is down and it is outside of the scheduled period, please contact our Customer Support Team on (England) 0303 444 5000.

I have received an error message…

If you have received an error message to do with a specific question, please check that you have entered the information within the question correctly.

If you receive a message informing you that a problem has occurred, please carry out the suggested actions on the screen to try and rectify this.

If after carrying out the actions, the problem is still not resolved, please contact our Customer Support Team and provide them with as much detail as possible – the time you experienced the problem or error message; what you were doing before the problem occurred and if the problem has happened before. We will then be able to look into the issue further.

I attached some documents to my form but they don’t appear to have uploaded…

Once you have attached a document, you must ensure that you click the button ‘Upload’ so that the document uploads to your form. You must do this each time you upload a document, even if you are attaching multiple documents for one question.

I’ve received a message informing me that the file type I have uploaded isn’t acceptable. What file types are accepted?

PDF - .pdf

Microsoft Word - .doc or .docx

TIF - .tif or .tiff

JPEG - .jpg or .jpeg

PNG - .png

ZIP - .zip

My attachment is too big. What can I do?

Documents submitted may be no bigger than 15mb each. It is your responsibility to keep your documents to a manageable size.

If you have documents that are larger than this, you can try the following:

  • Break long documents into several files, but note the document naming conventions which are described within our How To guides (links to which are displayed at the top of each page of your appeal form labelled ‘How to complete your appeal form’.).
  • Try and use black and white (wherever possible unless submitting photographs).
  • If submitting images, your software may have file/image compression facilities to make them smaller.
  • Note scanned documents are usually bigger than non-scanned versions.
  • Provided you are using the acceptable file types, you can use ZIP files to compress documents.
  • If you have a large file and you are unable to use the options listed, you can email anything up to 10mb to appeals@planninginspectorate.gov.uk.

I am having problems trying to submit my form…

Please ensure that you have answered all mandatory questions.

If you have not answered all of the mandatory questions, you will not be able to submit your form. A section entitled ‘Required Responses’ will be presented and this will highlight any sections which has essential information missing.

If you have answered all of the mandatory questions, but you are still having problems submitting your form, please contact our Customer Support Team and provide them with as much information as possible about what seems to be happening.

I have submitted my form but I haven’t received a confirmation email…

Please note that emails may take a short period of time to come through.

Did you submit an appeal form?

Was a confirmation screen, informing you that you would soon receive an email with a PDF copy of your form and appeal reference, displayed?

If no, please carry out the following:

Go into your home page (whilst logged in) and check to see if the appeal has gone into the ‘My cases’ section or whether it is still in the ‘Awaiting submissions’ section.

If it is in the ‘Awaiting submissions’ section then it may be that you have not submitted it. You should open the link and click on the drop down entitled ‘Sections’ and click on the ‘Submit’ section. Please read all of the information provided, confirm that you have read it and then click ‘Submit’.

If yes, please carry out the following:

Go into your home page (whilst logged in) and check to see if the appeal has gone into the ‘My cases’ section. If it has, then there should be an appeal reference number with a link. If you click on the link then it displays an un-editable version of your form.

Please contact our Customer Support Team quoting your appeal reference number so that we can check to see if your appeal form has been received.

If your appeal is not in ‘My cases’, please check to see if it is in ‘Awaiting submissions’. If it is, then please contact our Customer Support Team to inform them of what has happened and provide them with as much information as possible so that we can check to see if your appeal form has been received.

Did you submit a representation?

Was a confirmation screen, informing you that you would soon receive a confirmation email displayed?

If no, please carry out the following:

Go into your home page (whilst logged in) and check to see if the representation has gone into the ‘My representations’ section or whether it is still in the ‘Awaiting submissions’ section.

If it is in the ‘Awaiting submissions’ section then it may be that you have not submitted it. You should open the link and click on the drop down entitled ‘Sections’ and click on the ‘Submit’ section. Please read all of the information provided, confirm that you have read it and then click ‘Submit’.

If yes, please carry out the following:

Go into your home page (whilst logged in) and check to see if the appeal has gone into the ‘My representations’ section. If it has, then there will be a link which, if you click on, displays an un-editable version of your form. Please contact our Customer Support Team quoting the appeal reference number and providing them with as much information as possible so that we can check to see if your representation has been received.

If your representation is not in ‘My representations’, please check to see if it is in ‘Awaiting submissions’. If it is, then please contact our Customer Support Team to inform them of what has happened and provide them with as much information as possible, including the appeal reference number, so that we can check to see if your representation has been received.

I haven’t received the second email with my PDF attached…

Please note that emails may take a short period of time to come through.

Have you received the first email acknowledging receipt of your appeal or representation?

If no, please carry out the following:

Go into your home page (whilst logged in) and check to see if the appeal/representation has gone into the ‘My cases’ or ‘My representations’ section or whether it is still in the ‘Awaiting submissions’ section. If it is in the ‘Awaiting submissions’ section then it may be that you have not submitted it. You should open the link and click on the drop down entitled ‘Sections’ and click on the ‘Submit’ section. Please read all of the information provided, confirm that you have read it and then click ‘Submit’.

If the appeal/representation is in the ‘My cases’ or ‘My representations’ section then there should be an appeal reference number with a link. If you click on the link then it displays an un-editable version of your form. Please contact our Customer Support Team quoting the appeal reference number so that we can check to see if your appeal form/representation has been received.

If yes, please carry out the following:

Go into your home page (whilst logged in) and check to see if the appeal has gone into the ‘My cases’ section. If it has, then there should be an appeal reference number with a link. If you click on the link then it displays an un-editable version of your form.

Please contact our Customer Support Team quoting your appeal reference number so that we can check to see if your appeal form has been received.

If your appeal is not in ‘My cases’, please check to see if it is in ‘Awaiting submissions’. If it is, then please contact our Customer Support Team to inform them of what has happened and provide them with as much information as possible so that we can check to see if your appeal form has been received.

Did you submit a representation?

Was a confirmation screen, informing you that you would soon receive a confirmation email displayed?

If no, please carry out the following:

Go into your home page (whilst logged in) and check to see if the representation has gone into the ‘My representations’ section or whether it is still in the ‘Awaiting submissions’ section.

If it is in the ‘Awaiting submissions’ section then it may be that you have not submitted it. You should open the link and click on the drop down entitled ‘Sections’ and click on the ‘Submit’ section. Please read all of the information provided, confirm that you have read it and then click ‘Submit’.

If yes, please carry out the following:

Go into your home page (whilst logged in) and check to see if the appeal has gone into the ‘My representations’ section. If it has, then there will be a link which, if you click on, displays an un-editable version of your form. Please contact our Customer Support Team quoting the appeal reference number and providing them with as much information as possible so that we can check to see if your representation has been received.

If your representation is not in ‘My representations’, please check to see if it is in ‘Awaiting submissions’. If it is, then please contact our Customer Support Team to inform them of what has happened and provide them with as much information as possible, including the appeal reference number, so that we can check to see if your representation has been received.

Published 1 April 2016