What Evidence Existed at the Time of the Planning Decision?
When a planning decision is challenged, a recurring source of confusion is what is meant by “the evidence before the decision-maker”. In practice, this phrase is often stretched well beyond its proper limits.
This page explains, in clear and practical terms, what can legitimately be said to have existed at the time a planning decision was made — and what cannot.
It does not assess planning merits or outcomes.
It does not state whether a decision was lawful or unlawful.
It simply fixes the boundary between decision-stage evidence and later narrative.
The decision-stage moment
Every planning decision has a definable moment in time:
- when the officer report is finalised;
- when the committee considers the application; or
- when delegated authority is exercised.
At that moment, the decision-maker must act on the information actually available to them then — not on information that was expected, intended, or produced later.
This moment is referred to here as the decision stage.
Evidence either existed at that stage, or it did not.
What counts as “existing” evidence?
For the purposes of understanding a planning decision, evidence can only be said to have existed at decision stage if it meets all of the following conditions:
- it was completed, not provisional or in draft;
- it was available to the decision-maker at the time of decision;
- it contained substantive findings or conclusions, not intentions or scope;
- it was capable of informing the decision being taken.
Examples of evidence that can exist at decision stage include:
- completed technical assessments;
- final consultee responses addressing the issue in question;
- concluded analyses with stated outcomes;
- documents explicitly relied upon in the officer report.
If an item does not meet these criteria, it cannot be treated as decision-stage evidence.
What does not count as existing evidence
In post-decision explanations, the following are often treated as if they were evidence. They are not.
1. Intended or future assessments
Statements such as:
- “this will be assessed later”
- “details will be provided at reserved matters”
- “the issue can be conditioned”
do not convert the absence of evidence into evidence. They confirm that the evidence did not exist at decision stage.
2. Drafts, scoping documents, or work in progress
Draft reports, scoping opinions, or ongoing studies do not constitute decision-stage evidence. Until an assessment is completed and its conclusions are known, it cannot inform a planning judgment.
3. General understanding or professional familiarity
Decision-makers may have experience or awareness of an issue, but understanding is not evidence.
Knowing that an issue exists is not the same as having evidence resolving it.
4. Silence or omission
If an officer report does not refer to an assessment or finding, it cannot later be assumed that such evidence existed but was simply not mentioned.
Silence is not neutral. It is a factual record that the issue was not addressed by evidence at decision stage.
5. Evidence produced after the decision
Material created after the decision — even shortly afterwards — does not retrospectively become decision-stage evidence.
Later evidence may be relevant for other purposes, but it cannot change what existed at the moment the decision was taken.
Why timing matters
Planning decisions are assessed by reference to what was known at the time, not what became known later.
Allowing later material to be treated as if it had existed earlier collapses the distinction between:
- deciding on evidence, and
- reconstructing justification after the event.
This distinction is critical in governance, appeals, and legal review. Without it, the concept of decision-stage accountability loses meaning.
Conditions and evidence
Conditions are frequently misunderstood in this context.
A planning condition can regulate how a development proceeds. It cannot create evidence that did not exist at decision stage.
If the acceptability of a proposal depends on an unresolved issue, and the evidence resolving that issue does not exist, reliance on a condition confirms deferral, not sufficiency.
Fixing reality in time
This page does not state whether any particular decision was right or wrong.
Its purpose is narrower:
To distinguish, clearly and consistently, between evidence that existed at the moment of decision and explanations constructed later.
Once that boundary is fixed, decision-makers, reviewers, and courts may draw their own conclusions.
But the boundary itself cannot move.
Summary
Evidence either existed at decision stage, or it did not.
Intentions, drafts, conditions, and later material do not change that fact.
Silence is a record, not an absence of relevance.
Understanding is not evidence.
Timing is not technical detail — it is the foundation of decision accountability.
This distinction is not about planning outcomes. It is about what was actually before the decision-maker when the decision was made.
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