78 UK Planning Permission Statistics for 2026

England received 315,900 planning applications in the year ending March 2026, down 5% on the previous year.

Application volumes have been falling since the post-pandemic peak. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Authorities granted 259,600 decisions in the year ending March 2026, 87% of all decisions.

This is the official England grant rate, and it is a share of applications decided, not of applications submitted. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Authorities granted 90% of householder applications in the year ending March 2026 and decided 93% within eight weeks or the agreed time.

Householder work (extensions, loft conversions and conservatories) is the most likely category to be approved. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Householder developments accounted for 151,900 decisions, 51% of every planning decision made in England.

More than half the planning system's caseload is homeowners altering their own houses. (MHCLG, June 2026)

The share of decisions granted ranges from 81% in London to 90% in the South West.

London is the hardest English region for planning permission by this measure, and has been consistently. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Just 19% of major applications were decided within the statutory 13-week period, even though 91% were decided within 13 weeks or an agreed extension.

The headline performance figure and the statutory deadline measure almost nothing in common. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Only 38% of minor applications were decided inside the statutory 8 weeks.

For anything beyond a householder alteration, the eight-week deadline is the exception rather than the rule. (MHCLG, June 2026)

The statutory fee to extend or alter an existing single house in England is £548 from 1 April 2026.

Fees rose 3.8% that day, indexed to CPI. (Planning Portal, April 2026)

31% of Section 78 planning appeals were allowed in the quarter April to June 2026.

Roughly two in three appeals against refusal fail. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

The median time from a valid appeal to a decision was 19 weeks across all cases in the 12 months to June 2026.

An appeal roughly doubles the time a refused project spends in the system. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

In England, no enforcement action may be taken over unauthorised building work after ten years beginning with the date the operations were substantially completed.

The four-year rule was replaced in England on 25 April 2024 and now survives only in Wales. (legislation.gov.uk, September 2026)

Northern Ireland's overall approval rate was 94.6% in 2025/26, against Scotland's 92.2% in 2024/25 and England's 87%.

The four nations run different systems, different categories and different statutory clocks, so the gap is not a like-for-like league table. (Department for Infrastructure, September 2026)

Authorities undertaking district level planning in England received 315,900 planning applications in the year ending March 2026, down 5% on the previous year.

The series has fallen steadily since the 2021 peak. (MHCLG, June 2026)

England received 79,600 planning applications in the quarter ending March 2026, down 10% on the same quarter a year earlier.

January to March is seasonally the quietest quarter, so compare it with the same quarter rather than the one before. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Authorities decided 68,400 planning applications in the quarter ending March 2026, down 4% year on year.

Decisions are falling more slowly than submissions, which is what shrinks the backlog. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Authorities granted 259,600 decisions in the year ending March 2026, 87% of all decisions.

Use this figure, with its year, for the national approval rate. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Authorities granted 59,400 decisions in the quarter ending March 2026, equivalent to 87% of all decisions.

The quarterly and annual grant rates are identical, which is why the 87% figure is stable enough to quote. (MHCLG, June 2026)

There were 114,600 planning applications sitting on hand at the end of March 2026, down 3% year on year.

Applications on hand are the system's queue, and they run well above a single quarter's decisions. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Residential decisions ran at 37,200 for the year ending March 2026, of which 28,100 (76%) were granted.

Residential schemes are approved markedly less often than the 87% all-category rate. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Just 19% of major applications were decided within the statutory 13-week period in the quarter ending March 2026, even though 91% were decided within 13 weeks or an agreed extension.

Any claim that authorities hit their deadlines nine times out of ten is describing the first measure, not the second. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Only 38% of minor applications were decided inside the statutory 8 weeks, against 87% decided within 8 weeks or an agreed extension.

The eight weeks written into the statutory period is met in well under half of minor cases. (MHCLG, June 2026)

43% of all planning application decisions in the quarter involved a performance agreement.

Performance agreements cover planning performance agreements, extensions of time and environmental impact assessments. (MHCLG, June 2026)

77% of major decisions involved a performance agreement, against 54% of minor and 37% of other decisions.

The larger the scheme, the more likely the statutory clock has been set aside by agreement. (MHCLG, June 2026)

94% of major decisions made under a performance agreement were on time, against 81% of major decisions without one meeting the statutory 13-week limit.

Agreeing an extension is how authorities report good timeliness, which is why the two measures should always be quoted together. (MHCLG, June 2026)

The share of decisions granted ranges from 81% in London to 90% in the South West.

A London applicant faces a materially lower grant rate than one in the South West on the same national rules. (MHCLG, June 2026)

London authorities received 13,900 planning applications in the quarter ending March 2026, the second-highest of any English region.

London combines high application volume with the lowest grant rate in England, which is why local knowledge matters more there. Our borough guides cover Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Camden and Islington. (MHCLG, June 2026)

London authorities decided 12,000 applications and granted 9,800 of them in the quarter ending March 2026.

Around 2,200 London decisions in a single quarter were refusals. For borough-level detail see our guides for Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Wandsworth and Richmond upon Thames. (MHCLG, June 2026)

The South East received 15,300 planning applications in the quarter, more than any other English region.

The South East and London together account for over a third of all English applications. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Quarterly applications received fell in every English region, from -15% in the South West to -4% in the West Midlands.

The decline is national, not regional. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Authorities made 151,900 decisions on householder developments in the year ending March 2026, 51% of all planning decisions.

Most of what the planning system does is process homeowners' alterations. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Authorities granted 90% of householder applications in the year ending March 2026 and decided 93% within eight weeks or the agreed time.

Householder work is both the most approved and the fastest-decided category. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Householder decisions numbered 33,500 in the quarter ending March 2026, 49% of all decisions, down from 51% a year earlier.

The householder share of the caseload is edging down as total decisions fall. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Authorities granted 91% of householder applications in the quarter ending March 2026.

One in eleven householder applications was still refused, which is what makes the design and documentation of the submission worth getting right. (MHCLG, June 2026)

District authorities reported 5,200 prior approval applications under permitted development rights in the quarter, with an overall acceptance rate of 81%.

Prior approval covers the permitted development rights that still require an application to the authority; rights that need no notification at all are not counted anywhere. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Large householder extensions accounted for 53% of all permitted development prior approval applications reported in the quarter.

Over half the prior approval system is homeowners using the larger home extension route. Our extension size checker covers the size limits that decide whether you need this route or a full application. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Across the 48 quarters from April 2014 to March 2026, authorities reported 380,300 prior approval applications for permitted development.

Of those, 209,900 were found not to need prior approval, 91,700 were granted and 78,700 were refused. To check which route a project falls under, start with our planning permission checker. (MHCLG, June 2026)

The statutory fee to apply for the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of an existing single dwellinghouse in England is £548 from 1 April 2026.

This is the standard householder extension fee, and it excludes flats. (Planning Portal, April 2026)

Outbuildings, gates, fences and walls within the boundary of an existing house carry a £272 application fee.

Garden rooms, garages and boundary treatments sit in this lower band. (Planning Portal, April 2026)

A prior approval application for a larger home extension under Part 1 Class A costs £249.

The permitted development route is cheaper than the £548 full householder application. (Planning Portal, April 2026)

Adding storeys to a house under Part 1 Class AA also costs £249 as a prior approval application.

Upward extension carries the same prior approval fee as a larger rear extension. (Planning Portal, April 2026)

Removing or varying a condition on a householder permission costs £89, and discharging conditions costs the same £89 again.

These are two separate applications, a Section 73 variation and a discharge of conditions, each with its own fee; the second is the one most often left out of a budget. (Planning Portal, April 2026)

A non-material amendment to a householder permission costs £46, the cheapest application in the English fee schedule.

Minor changes to an approved scheme need not mean a new full application. (Planning Portal, April 2026)

A lawful development certificate for an existing use or operation costs £309.

This is the route to formalising work that was never consented but is now beyond the enforcement time limit. (Planning Portal, April 2026)

English planning application fees rose 3.8% on 1 April 2026, set against the Consumer Price Index 12-month rate for September 2025.

Fees are indexed annually, so any figure quoted from before April 2026 is now out of date. (Planning Portal, January 2026)

The Planning Inspectorate made 19,190 appeal decisions in the 12 months to June 2026, an average of 1,599 a month.

This covers all appeal casework, not only planning refusals. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

31% of Section 78 planning appeals were allowed in the quarter April to June 2026.

The allowed rate has sat close to a third for several years. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

There were 665 appeals allowed between April and June 2026, 49 fewer than in the previous quarter.

Quote the quarterly count alongside the rate: the rate is stable while the volume moves. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

Appellants lodged 9,570 Section 78 planning appeals in the 12 months to June 2026, 5.7% more than the year before.

Appeal receipts are rising while planning applications fall. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

The median time from a valid appeal to a decision was 19 weeks across all cases in the 12 months to June 2026.

The clock runs from the point the Inspectorate deems the appeal valid, so validation delays are included. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

The mean decision time was 29 weeks against a median of 19, a gap driven by a tail of very long cases.

Cite the median for a typical case and the mean only if you mean to include the outliers. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

Written representations accounted for 17,744 decisions, 95% of all appeal decisions with a procedure allocated.

Almost every appeal is decided on paper without a hearing. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

The median decision time was 18 weeks for written representations, 23 weeks for hearings and 26 weeks for inquiries.

Choosing a hearing or inquiry adds roughly one to two months to the median. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

Hearings accounted for just 624 decisions and inquiries 338 over the 12 months.

Together they are under 6% of appeal decisions. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

Planning cases made up 15,195 decisions, about 79% of all appeal decisions, alongside 3,060 enforcement decisions.

The remainder is specialist casework such as listed building and advertisement appeals. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

Enforcement appeals decided in June 2026 took a median of 63 weeks, with a 12-month median of 67 weeks.

Enforcement appeals take roughly three times as long as planning appeals. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

Planning inquiries run under the Rosewell process took a median of 30 weeks over the 12 months to June 2026.

The Rosewell process was introduced to shorten inquiry timescales and is now the route for most inquiry decisions. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

The Inspectorate employed 469 planning inspectors at the end of June 2026.

Inspector headcount is the constraint on how fast the appeal queue clears. (Planning Inspectorate, July 2026)

Authorities issued 1,435 enforcement notices in the quarter ending March 2026.

Against 68,400 decisions in the same quarter, formal enforcement is rare. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Authorities served 1,411 planning contravention notices and 180 breach of condition notices in the same quarter.

A contravention notice is an information request, and usually the first contact a homeowner gets. (MHCLG, June 2026)

Authorities served 18 stop notices and 73 temporary stop notices in the quarter, and the High or County Court granted 9 enforcement injunctions.

The powers that halt work immediately are used in a few dozen cases a quarter nationally. (MHCLG, June 2026)

In England, no enforcement action may be taken over unauthorised building work after ten years beginning with the date the operations were substantially completed.

Section 171B(1)(a) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 was substituted on 25 April 2024 by section 115 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, replacing the previous four-year period. (legislation.gov.uk, September 2026)

In Wales the same limit is still four years from substantial completion, so the widely repeated four-year rule now applies only in Wales, not in England.

Any English guidance still citing a four-year rule for building works is out of date by more than two years. (legislation.gov.uk, September 2026)

An unauthorised change of use to a single dwellinghouse is immune from enforcement after ten years in England and four years in Wales.

Section 171B(2) mirrors the split introduced for building operations. (legislation.gov.uk, September 2026)

Every other breach of planning control carries a ten-year immunity period running from the date of the breach.

Section 171B(3) was already ten years before the 2024 change, which is why England now has a single ten-year period across the board. (legislation.gov.uk, September 2026)

Scottish authorities decided 17,644 local development applications in 2024/25.

Local developments include house alterations and smaller housing schemes. (Scottish Government, December 2025)

Scotland's overall approval rate was 92.2% in 2024/25.

This runs about five percentage points above England's 87%. (Scottish Government, December 2025)

The average decision time for Scottish local applications without a processing agreement was 11.8 weeks in 2024/25.

Scotland's statutory period for local developments is two months, not eight weeks. (Scottish Government, December 2025)

62.9% of Scottish local applications were decided within two months in 2024/25, down from 63.7% the year before.

Scotland reports against its statutory period directly, which makes it more comparable to England's statutory measure than to England's "in time" measure. (Scottish Government, December 2025)

Scottish local housing developments without a processing agreement took a mean 19.4 weeks but a median of 12.1 weeks.

The Scottish Government publishes both because a handful of very long cases pull the mean well above the typical case. (Scottish Government, December 2025)

Scotland's delegation rate was 96.6% in 2024/25.

Almost all Scottish decisions are made by officers rather than elected members. (Scottish Government, December 2025)

Scottish Local Review Bodies dealt with 629 cases in 2024/25 and upheld the original decision in 60% of them.

Scotland routes officer decisions to a Local Review Body rather than to a national inspectorate. (Scottish Government, December 2025)

There were 343 appeals to Scottish Ministers in 2024/25, with 63.8% upholding the original decision.

The success rate against a Scottish refusal is broadly similar to the English appeal rate. (Scottish Government, December 2025)

Scotland recorded 5,384 enforcement cases in 2024/25, leading to 681 notices served and a single prosecution.

Scotland counts cases as well as notices, so its enforcement figures are not directly comparable with England's notice counts. (Scottish Government, December 2025)

Welsh authorities determined 4,088 planning applications on time in the quarter ending March 2026, and 428 not on time.

Wales publishes counts on time and not on time rather than a national percentage. (Welsh Government, July 2026)

Across Welsh planning authorities the average share of applications determined on time was 90.5% in the quarter ending March 2026.

This is the mean of authority percentages, not a national aggregate rate: the survey's Wales total row publishes no percentage. (Welsh Government, July 2026)

Across Welsh authorities the average share of applications determined within eight weeks was 47.2%.

As in England, the gap between "on time" and "within eight weeks" is the effect of agreed extensions. (Welsh Government, July 2026)

Welsh authorities determined 2,130 applications within eight weeks and 2,386 outside that period in the quarter ending March 2026.

More Welsh applications took longer than eight weeks than met it. (Welsh Government, July 2026)

Cardiff determined 550 applications on time in the quarter ending March 2026, more than any other Welsh authority.

Cardiff determined 558 in total, of which eight were not on time. (Welsh Government, July 2026)

Northern Ireland received 9,642 planning applications in 2025/26, comprising 9,473 local, 165 major and four regionally significant applications.

Northern Ireland's 11 councils handle local and major applications; the Department handles regionally significant ones. (Department for Infrastructure, September 2026)

Northern Ireland councils decided 8,774 planning applications in 2025/26, down 5% on the previous year.

Decisions fell while receipts held steady. (Department for Infrastructure, September 2026)

Northern Ireland's overall approval rate was 94.6% in 2025/26, close to the 94.5% recorded in 2024/25.

This is the highest approval rate of the four nations on their latest published figures. (Department for Infrastructure, September 2026)

Northern Ireland approval rates ranged from 88.6% in Newry, Mourne and Down to 97.5% in Mid Ulster.

The Department notes these rates depend on many factors and warns against direct comparison between councils. (Department for Infrastructure, September 2026)

The approval rate for Northern Ireland major applications was 99.1% in 2025/26.

Only 116 major applications were decided, so the rate moves sharply on small numbers. (Department for Infrastructure, September 2026)

Local applications in Northern Ireland took an average 19.6 weeks to decision or withdrawal in 2025/26, against a 15-week target that only three of 11 councils met.

Northern Ireland publishes a statutory average-time target rather than a percentage-within-period measure. (Department for Infrastructure, September 2026)

Northern Ireland major applications averaged 41.4 weeks against a 30-week target, met by two of 11 councils.

Major application times worsened by 1.8 weeks on the previous year. (Department for Infrastructure, September 2026)

Northern Ireland councils concluded 75.1% of enforcement cases within 39 weeks in 2025/26, meeting the 70% target.

This is an enforcement timeliness measure, not an approval rate, and is frequently misreported as one. (Department for Infrastructure, September 2026)

Private housing repair and maintenance output fell 1.7% in the three months to July 2026, the largest negative contribution to a 0.5% fall in total construction output.

Repair and maintenance is the ONS category that covers extensions and home improvement work. (ONS, September 2026)

Private housing repair and maintenance grew 1.7% in the single month of July 2026.

The monthly and three-monthly series point in opposite directions, so quote the period you mean. (ONS, September 2026)

Private housing new work fell 4.9% in July 2026, the largest drag on total new work.

New build and home improvement are moving apart. (ONS, September 2026)

Total construction output fell 0.5% in the three months to July 2026 after four consecutive three-monthly increases.

These figures cover Great Britain, not the United Kingdom, and are seasonally adjusted. (ONS, September 2026)