Terms of Use

1. About AppealBase™

AppealBase™ is a free tool for exploring planning appeal decisions issued by the Planning Inspectorate (PINS) in England. It is independently developed and maintained, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Planning Inspectorate or the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

For details of the data we publish and how we handle personal information, please see our Privacy Statement.

2. User Accounts

AppealBase™ offers optional user accounts that allow you to access additional features and personalize your experience. When you create an account, you agree to:

Account-only features may include saving searches and decisions, adding notes to saved decisions, and enabling email alerts for saved searches.

• • Provide accurate and complete information during registration
• • Maintain the security of your account credentials
• • Accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account
• • Notify us immediately of any unauthorized use of your account
• • Accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Statement

You may sign up using your email address and a password, or through third-party authentication providers (Google, Apple, Microsoft). We use industry-standard encryption to protect your password.

You may delete your account at any time through your account settings. Account deletion is permanent and cannot be undone.

3. Use of this site

By using this website, you agree to:

• • Use it lawfully and responsibly
• • Not attempt to disrupt, overload, or misuse the service in any way
• • Accept the use of cookies and analytics technologies as described in our Privacy Statement

AppealBase™ is provided for information and research purposes only. It does not offer legal or planning advice, and you should not rely on it as a substitute for professional judgement or statutory sources.

3a. Citation Checker

The Citation Checker feature allows registered users to extract and validate appeal references from documents. When using this feature, you agree to:

• • Only upload or process files and URLs that you have the legal right to process
• • Not upload files or process URLs containing sensitive personal data, confidential information, or content you do not have permission to process
• • Only upload supported file types (PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, RTF)
• • Not use the service to process files or URLs in a way that violates any laws or third-party rights
• • Accept that files and URLs are processed temporarily and are not stored by AppealBase™
• • Understand that the service extracts text using automated methods and may not be 100% accurate for all document types

We reserve the right to limit or restrict access to the Citation Checker feature if we detect misuse, abuse, or excessive usage that impacts service availability for other users.

4. Content licensing

All planning appeal decisions and associated metadata are sourced from the Planning Inspectorate and published under the Open Government Licence v3.0: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

5. Copyright and permitted use

You may link to pages on this website and share its content for informational purposes, provided you do not misrepresent the source or suggest endorsement.

You may not systematically copy, download, or redistribute substantial parts of the database, particularly for commercial purposes, without separate permission.

6. Limitation of liability

While we take care to provide accurate and useful information, AppealBase™ is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. We are not liable for any loss, damage, or costs arising from use of the site or reliance on its content.

You are responsible for how you use any information found on this site.

7. Changes and availability

We may update or change this site at any time, including modifying or removing features. We may also change these Terms of Use without notice. Continued use of the site means you accept any changes.

8. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

9. Contact

If you have any questions or concerns about the site or its content, you can contact us at: