Angrybird I am a Chartered Surveyor who makes planning applications on behalf of clients regularly. Planning applications have a statutory determination period of eight weeks from registration. Most applications are in fact dealt with in that time. If they aren’t, it is recorded and local authorities get assessed on the proportion of applications that go over time. Of course, there are tricks they can play to avoid penalties. The favourite is to find a reason to persuade you to withdraw the application and start again. The problem for an applicant where an application has exceeded the eight weeks is that it can then end up in the “long grass”. Local authorities do not suffer any worse for an application that is 10 weeks over than for one that is 1 week over. Other more pressing matters can conspire to delay approval almost indefinitely. I am afraid that local authorities do not seem to have much regard for applicants and their woes. They are more concerned with getting the "right" result than doing so quickly. Since you are not paying planning officers directly (as my clients do me), they can afford to ignore your concerns. A big problem for you here is that you do not seem to be the applicant so I imagine suing them is out of the question (but I am not a lawyer). The only realistic means of bringing this to a conclusion is to maintain a gentle but insistent pressure on the planning officer in charge. Make yourself a nuisance, but a charming and polite one! You could appeal to his superior but the department is likely to simply close ranks against you and tell you they “are doing their best in difficult circumstances”, or some such tosh. At worst, it could make them even less helpful. It would be useful to find out what the report is. It is probably a report to the planning committee and part of the usual procedure in advance of an impending meeting. That in turn means that they have decided the application cannot be dealt with under “delegated powers” (a simplified procedure that allows planning officers themselves to determine applications). If it has to be decided at committee, you are confined to the monthly meetings. Miss one, and you wait another month. Unless it is summertime when there is often a month without a committee meeting, in which case you could wait another two months! If you have read Little Dorrit, you will know about the Circumlocution Office. Dealing with planning departments often seems just like that! Hope this helps.