Comment or search on a planning application

Any comments made on a planning application will be checked in line with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and made available to view within five working days.

See the Planning Departments Privacy Notice (opens new window) before making your comment.

What to include

Please include your name and address with your comment. This will enable the Case Officer to afford full weight to the matters you raise during the planning consideration. In addition the Planning Department will notify you of relevant planning committees and planning appeals.

What not to include

When making a comment, please do not include:

• signatures
• contact number
• any information you do not want published online
• comments of a personal, slanderous, defamatory or otherwise offensive or abusive nature

Offensive, racist, discriminatory, threatening and other statements that are not appropriate will not be published.

• Offensive statements lower a person's reputation personally within their trade, profession or business.
• Racist statements are those that are offensive or discriminate against individuals on racial grounds, including their race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins. Gypsies and other minorities are racial groups.
• Statements that discriminate on grounds of religion, sexuality or disability will also not be published.

Comments that include such statements will be returned to you and you will be invited to resubmit removing any defamatory statements. The council is bound by the Equality Act 2010 (opens new window). This applies to those providing services and public functions. It prohibits direct and indirect discrimination and harassment all of which these types of remarks might amount to.

What comments are taken into consideration?

We welcome any comments, whether in support of an application or in objection, but in making a decision we can only take account of planning considerations. The following outlines the relevant and irrelevant planning material considerations. These list are not exhaustive.

Relevant material considerations

• Planning Policy including government guidance
• Case law and previous decisions
• Design, appearance, materials and character
• Effects on listed buildings and areas of conservation
• Impact on wildlife and trees/vegetation
• Highway, safety, traffic and parking
• Noise, disturbance and smells
• Overshadowing and loss of privacy
• Effects on the landscapes

Irrelevant considerations

• Matters covered by other legislation
• Effect on value of property
• Personal and financial circumstances
• Loss of views
• Moral or religious issues
• Restrictive covenants
• Private disputes between neighbours

By signing up to the council's "My Alerts" system (opens new window), you can arrange to receive an email notification outlining planning application information within a specified distance around your property.

Please note: this service is only available for addresses outside of the National Park.

You can view details of the planning applications the council receives each week. If you wish to view an application in more detail, you can enter the planning application reference into the available 'View Planning Application' facility above.

Week 49 CDC List of New Applications 06.12.2023 (Word doc) [32KB]
Week 49 SDNP List of New Applications 06.12.2023 (Word doc) [102KB]

How to find a planning application

1. Select "View Planning Applications", this will open Planning - Simple Search.
2. Enter a keyword, application reference (without Parish prefix), postcode or a single line of an address.
3. Click Search.

For "Advanced" searching please refer to the Public Access guide.

Public Access Guide - Search and Comment on an Application (Word doc) [1MB]

How to submit a comment

Step 1: Please register a Public Access account
Step 2: Log in to your account
Step 3: Return to "simple search"
Step 4: Search for the relevant planning application
Step 5: Select "Make a comment"
Step 6: Complete the comment form and click submit

Please note: Comments will appear under the Public Access "Documents" tab.

For further guidance and functions please see guide.

Public Access Guide - Creating an Account (Word doc) [247KB]

As a Consultee user, you have a set of consultee pages that allow you to view new, active and past consultations for your interest area. You can also perform a consultation search. To use this function you must have first registered as a consultee user within Public Access.

Idox PA for Consultee Access 2.0 (Word doc) [1MB]

The Planning Service are continually striving to improve their online services and customer experience. The Public Access system is a popular and busy area of the web site.  If you experience an issue around availability and stability or experience an error please email dcplanning@chichester.gov.uk. Please include your contact details, details of the issue, relevant screen shots or error message codes. We will continue to carry out essential maintenance with notice when possible.

You may experience problems viewing Planning Application Documents when using the SAFARI browser on Apple devices. This issue is under investigation. In the meantime we recommend that documents are viewed through an alternative browser where possible. E.g. Edge, Chrome.

We apologise for this inconvenience and will provide further updates when available.

The following points should be noted:

Planning applications

• Information held within the Documents tab can be sorted by column to aid searching.
• Images on applications between May - November 2002 are not suitable to scale from.
• We cannot accept responsibility for the accuracy of plans.
• There are two reasons why you may be unable to view all application documents. They will not be shown if the decision is more than six months old. There is also the possibility that they have not yet been entered into the system.
• The quality of the displayed image depends on the quality of the original submission.
• A unique application reference is created for each case.
• Plans that are received with a planning application are listed as "Plans under consideration". If an application is amended, the old plans will be listed as "Plans- superseded" and the new ones as "Plans under consideration". When the case officer makes a recommendation about the application to the committee or to his senior officer for a delegated decision, the plans will be listed as "Plans under recommendation". Once a decision on the application is made, whether permission or refusal, the plans will be listed as "Plans decided".

Enforcement cases

• The search will not show all matters investigated by planning enforcement but will show cases where a reported breach of planning control has been 'founded'.
• Not all 'founded' cases will result in formal action.
• Local planning authorities have discretion to take enforcement action, when they regard it as expedient.
• The documents available on public access are limited to: the decision of the authority, formal notices issued and appeal documents.
• The search will also show breaches of planning control that have been resolved without the need for formal action.
• The complainant details are NOT shown and will remain confidential.
• Public access provides an online register of notices issued by the authority from January 2020 onwards.
• Use the following link to carry out an enforcement search:
• Public Access - planning simple search (opens new window)

Copyright warning

Plans, drawings and material relating to planning applications on this website are protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You should only download: for consultation purposes, to compare current applications with previous schemes or to check whether developments have been completed in accordance with approved plans.

Before taking further copies you may need to get the permission of the copyright owner (for example, the architect who prepared the plans). Unauthorised use could lead to the copyright owner seeking compensation from you or taking legal action against you.