{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/town-and-country-planning-inquiries-procedure-rules-1974/article-8",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/town-and-country-planning-inquiries-procedure-rules-1974/article-8.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/1974/419",
  "legislation_title": "The Town and Country Planning (Inquiries Procedure) Rules 1974",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/town-and-country-planning-inquiries-procedure-rules-1974",
  "path": "article/8",
  "kind": "article",
  "number": "8",
  "heading": "Representatives of government departments at inquiry",
  "text": "(1) Where either—\n(a) the Secretary of State has given a direction restricting the grant of permission for the development for which application was made, or\n(b) a government department has expressed in writing the view that the application should not be granted either wholly or in part or should be granted only subject to conditions or, in the case of an application under a tree preservation order, should be granted together with a direction requiring the replanting of trees, and the Secretary of State or the local planning authority have included this view in their statement as required by paragraph (1) or (3) of rule 6,\nthe applicant may, not later than 14 days before the date of the inquiry apply in writing to the Secretary of State for a representative of his department or of the other government department concerned to be made available at the inquiry.\n(2) Where an application is made to the Secretary of State under the last foregoing paragraph he shall make a representative of his department available to attend the inquiry or, as the case may be, transmit the application to the other government department concerned, who shall make a representative of that department available to attend the inquiry.\n(3) A representative of a government department who, in pursuance of this rule, attends an inquiry into a referred application shall state the reasons for the Secretary of State's direction restricting the grant of permission or, as the case may be, the reasons for the view expressed by his department and included in the Secretary of State's statement under rule 6(1) or the local planning authority's statement under rule 6(3) and shall give evidence and be subject to crossexamination to the same extent as any other witness.\n(4) A representative of a government department who, in pursuance of this rule, attends an inquiry on an appeal, shall be called as a witness by the local planning authority and shall state the reasons for the Secretary of State's direction or, as the case may be, the reasons for the view expressed by his department and included in the authority's statement under rule 6(3), and shall give evidence and be subject to cross-examination to the same extent as any other witness.\n(5) Nothing in either of the last two foregoing paragraphs shall require a representative of a government department to answer any question which in the opinion of the appointed person is directed to the merits of government policy and the appointed person shall disallow any such question.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1974/419/article/8",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T21:46:20.025858+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}