Planning Permission Statistics UK 2026

Just 20% of major planning applications in England were decided within the statutory 13-week period in the final quarter of 2025, even as councils granted 87% of all decisions made. Planning activity across the UK is contracting: applications, approvals and new home consents have all fallen year on year, while decision times stretch well beyond legal limits. This article draws together the latest official figures from across the UK to map out where the planning system stands heading into 2026.

Application Volumes and Decisions

Application numbers in England have been falling for four straight years, and the volume of decisions is falling faster still. The figures below track how much work is entering the system and how much is coming out the other end.

• In October to December 2025, district-level authorities in England received 76,300 planning applications, down 4% on the same quarter a year earlier.
• In the year to December 2025, England's authorities received 324,300 planning applications, down 2% on the year to December 2024.
• In the year to December 2025, authorities decided 300,600 planning applications, down 5% on the previous year, a steeper fall than the 2% drop in applications received.
• Councils granted 261,700 decisions in the year to December 2025, down 4% on the year to December 2024.
• Applications on hand stood at 105,700 at the end of December 2025, a backlog 1.4 times larger than the 76,300 applications received that quarter.
• England's quarterly application average fell from 118,500 in 2021 to 82,700 in 2024, a 30% decline in three years.

Approval and Refusal Rates

England's grant rate has barely moved in a decade, holding just below nine in ten decisions regardless of political or economic conditions. What varies is the type of application, with householder work far more likely to be approved than residential schemes.

• In the year to December 2025, England's national approval rate reached 87% of decisions, up 1 percentage point on the previous year.
• England refused 38,900 planning applications in the year to December 2025, the gap between 300,600 decisions made and 261,700 granted.
• England's national grant rate has held close to 87% since 2015, moving only between 85% and 89%.
• In the quarter ending December 2025, householder applications carried a 90% approval rate.
• In the quarter ending December 2025, residential applications were approved at 75%, 15 percentage points below the householder rate.
• In Q4 2025, prior approval applications for permitted development were accepted at 80%, against the 87% average across all English applications.
• County-level authorities, which handle minerals and waste applications, approved 95% of applications, against 87% across all English authorities.

Regional Variation in Approval Rates

Where an application is submitted matters more than the national grant rate suggests. Approval rates span nine percentage points between English regions and a far wider gap between individual councils.

• In 2025, London recorded England's lowest regional approval rate at 82.5%, against 91.7% in the North East.
• In 2025, the South East approved 87.2% of decisions across 65 authorities, in line with the 87% national rate.
• In 2025, Barking & Dagenham approved just 66% of decisions, 21 percentage points below England's 87% average.
• In the year to June 2025, council approval rates for major developments ranged from 29% in Woking to 97% in Knowsley.

Decision Times and Delays

Statutory deadlines have become close to notional in England, with agreed extensions doing the work the legal limits were meant to do. The numbers below separate the headline compliance figures from how long applications actually take.

• Only 20% of major applications were decided within the statutory 13-week period in Q4 2025, rising to 91% once agreed extensions are counted.
• Across 2,103,811 decided applications in 213 English councils, the average time from validation to decision was 10.7 weeks, against an 8-week statutory target.
• Nine in ten English councils, 91%, exceeded the statutory 8-week average for non-major decisions.
• At the worst-performing authorities, major applications took an average of 415 days to decide, more than 4.5 times the 91-day statutory limit.
• Major housing schemes now take more than 300 days on average to receive a decision, a 75% rise over the past decade.
• In 2025, householder single-storey extensions averaged 9 weeks to decide, against 11.4 weeks for two-storey extensions.

Planning Appeals

Appeal success rates have climbed since the December 2024 revision to national planning policy, and the gap between appeal routes is wide. Larger schemes and formal procedures fare far better than routine written cases.

• 2,252 section 78 appeal decisions were issued in Q4 2025/26, of which 713 were allowed, an allow rate of 31.7% and up from 30.2% the previous quarter.
• The section 78 appeal allow rate rose from 28.2% before the December 2024 policy revision to 31.4% after it.
• In 2025/26, major residential developments succeeded on appeal at 53%, more than double the 24% rate for minor schemes.
• In 2025/26, householder appeals were allowed at 36%, above the 31.7% overall rate.
• Appeals decided through public inquiries had the highest success rate at 61%, though inquiries made up just 1.8% of all section 78 appeals.

Householder Applications and Permitted Development

Householder work makes up roughly half of everything English councils decide, which makes extensions and loft conversions the volume engine of the planning system. Permitted development sits alongside it as a lighter-touch route with its own approval pattern.

• In the year to December 2025, 154,500 decisions were made on householder applications in England, 51% of all decisions made that year.
• In the quarter ending December 2025, householder developments accounted for 49% of all decisions, down from 50% in the same quarter a year earlier.
• Large householder extensions made up 53% of all permitted development right applications reported in Q4 2025.
• Since April 2014, district authorities have reported 375,100 prior approval applications: 207,200 where prior approval was not required, 90,200 granted and 77,700 refused.

Planning Fees

April 2025 brought the largest single increase to English planning fees in years, with several householder categories doubling outright. A separate indexation mechanism now raises every fee automatically each year.

• Planning application fees in England rose 1.7% from 1 April 2025 under a new annual inflation-linked indexation mechanism, on top of separate category increases.
• Fees for a single-dwelling householder extension roughly doubled from £258 to £528 in April 2025.
• Fees for extensions to two or more dwellinghouses rose from £509 to £1,043.
• Standard prior approval fees doubled from £120 to £240, while prior approval involving building operations rose from £258 to £516.
• Discharge-of-conditions fees for householders doubled from £43 to £86.
• A new tiered structure set section 73 application fees at £2,000 for major development, £586 for non-major schemes and £86 for householders.
• Prior approval fees for Class E to residential change of use under Class MA doubled from £125 to £250 per dwelling in April 2025.

Local Authority Staffing and Capacity

Councils are trying to clear a growing caseload with fewer planners than they need, and almost none report being fully staffed. The figures below size the shortfall against the number of posts nationally committed to fixing it.

• 80% of English councils reported operating below full planning staffing capacity.
• On average, council planning departments sat 12% below full staffing capacity, a shortfall of more than 7 full-time equivalent officers per council.
• England and Wales face a shortfall of over 2,200 planning officers, against a national commitment of 300 new posts, roughly seven times the gap that pledge would close.
• 884 planning vacancies were recorded across English planning departments, around 11% of all planning posts, or one in nine.

Housing Delivery and the 1.5 Million Homes Target

The 1.5 million homes target set at the start of this Parliament requires a delivery rate England has not reached in decades. The numbers below track progress so far and show where the pipeline is thinning.

• 392,400 net additional homes have been delivered in England since Parliament opened on 9 July 2024, roughly two-thirds of the pace the 1.5 million target requires.
• Housebuilding starts in England reached 130,170 in 2025-26, up 15% from 112,880 the previous year.
• Housing completions in England totalled 143,110 in 2025-26, down from 152,040 in 2024-25 and the lowest level since 2015-16.
• Net additional dwellings in England, which include conversions and change of use as well as new builds, fell to 208,600 in 2024-25, a 6% decrease on the previous year.
• Granted residential planning applications in England fell from 28,500 in 2018 to 11,500 in 2024, a 60% drop in the number of schemes approved.
• Planning permissions on small and medium sites of 10 to 49 dwellings fell 61%, from 69,702 homes in 2016 to 26,909 in 2025.
• Residential units approved across Great Britain fell from 77,284 in Q4 2024 to 45,075 in Q3 2025, a 42% drop in three quarters.
• In London, fewer than 34,000 units across just 910 projects were approved in the latest 12-month period, the lowest since records began.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The devolved planning systems approve a higher share of applications than England but take longer to reach a decision. Application volumes are falling in both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

• In 2024/25, Scotland's planning authorities decided 17,644 local development applications, approving 92.2% against 87% in England.
• In 2024/25, only 62.9% of Scottish local applications were determined within the statutory two-month target, down from 63.7% the previous year.
• In 2024/25, Scotland decided 169 major applications, up from 120 the year before, taking an average of 37.4 weeks.
• In 2024/25, Scottish housing applications fell to 2,505, with an average decision time of 19.4 weeks.
• In the 12 months to September 2025, Northern Ireland received 9,578 planning applications, down 4% on the previous year and 20% since 2022-23.
• Northern Ireland's average local application processing time reached 19.8 weeks in Q1 2025/26 across all councils.
• In 2024/25, Northern Ireland's average major application processing time fell to 39.6 weeks, the lowest since planning powers transferred to councils.

2026 Outlook

Application volumes have started to recover while completions are forecast to keep falling, because a permission takes well over a year to become a finished home. The figures below set the near-term forecasts against the delivery rate the target needs.

• England housing completions are forecast to fall to just over 150,000 homes in both 2026/27 and 2027/28.
• Only 837,500 new homes are projected to be completed in England in the five years to 2029-30, 56% of the 1.5 million target.
• England would need around 325,000 net additional homes a year from 2026 onward to close the gap, against the 208,600 delivered in 2024-25.
• Planning applications for new homes rose 44% in the past year, returning to levels last seen in 2022 and 2023.
• The recent rise in housing applications will take at least 18 months to feed through into higher completion volumes.
• Six of nine English regions granted consent for fewer homes in the year to Q1 2026 than they completed, signalling a contracting pipeline.

Sources

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34. Prince Surveyors - UK 1.5 Million Homes Target 2026 analysis, 2026
35. Improvement Service - Scotland's New Interactive Planning Application Dashboard, 2025