Updated September 2026 · Report
The State of UK Planning: Q3 2026
A national snapshot of UK planning activity, built from the public planning registers SiteLens tracks across 386 local planning authorities. Figures cover the last 12 months unless stated. Free to cite with a link to this page.
For scale: our 205,686 England records over the last 12 months are up to 65.1% of the 315,900 applications the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) recorded as received across England, district level planning authorities in the year ending March 2026. Up to, not exactly: our count includes county and National Park authorities that the official district-level figure leaves out.
Application volumes across the 386 tracked councils reached 239,757 in the 12 months to Q3 2026, with the past 90 days recording 111,432 submissions—a 57 per cent rise on the preceding quarter. This sharp acceleration signals strong momentum in the pipeline and suggests sustained demand for planning resource among surveyors, engineers and building control teams. The tracked total represents up to 65.1 per cent of the 315,900 applications received by England's district-level planning authorities in the year ending March 2026, according to MHCLG official statistics.
Householder applications dominate the mix at 45.8 per cent, followed by miscellaneous other categories at 26.2 per cent and residential development at 10.6 per cent. Commercial and institutional proposals account for 10.2 per cent combined, with infrastructure at 2.7 per cent. The volume is heavily weighted toward minor schemes: 232,101 minor applications against 7,656 major schemes. Within major work, 4,410 schemes exceeded £5 million, indicating a smaller pool of capital-intensive projects supporting specialist trades and material suppliers.
Greater London leads regional activity with 17 per cent of tracked applications, followed by the South East at 15.7 per cent and South West at 12.1 per cent. Approval rates across the tracked councils stand at 90 per cent, with a median decision time of 54 days. Across all appeal types in the Planning Inspectorate's national record for cases decided between July 2016 and June 2026, 29.5 per cent of 176,461 judged appeals were allowed. Householder appeals performed distinctly better at 35.6 per cent, while enforcement appeals succeeded in 13.5 per cent of cases. The labour market context shows new online job adverts for skilled construction and building trades fell 25 per cent in May 2026 compared with the prior year, according to ONS figures.
The trend: applications by month
How monthly application volume has moved across the registers SiteLens tracks. The most recent 90 days ran 57% above the previous 90, a leading signal of where construction and development work is heading.
Applications validated per month. Earlier months, when SiteLens tracked materially fewer registers, are omitted so the trend compares months of like coverage.
How appeals go
When a council refuses an application, the applicant can appeal. In England those appeals are decided by the Planning Inspectorate rather than by the council, and the Inspectorate publishes its own casework record. Across 176,461 appeals judged either way (appeals decided 2016-07 to 2026-06), 29.5% were allowed, meaning the council’s decision did not stand. These figures span several years of casework and are not a reading of the last 12 months.
The headline mixes small householder cases with major planning appeals, and those behave very differently, so it is the wrong number to judge a single council by. The rate for each kind of appeal is below; it is the baseline each council’s own record is measured against on its SiteLens council page.
| Appeal type | Cases | Judged | Allowed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Planning Appeal | 102,067 | 100,380 | 28.8% |
| Householder (HAS) | 44,540 | 43,434 | 35.6% |
| Enforcement Notice | 17,773 | 13,869 | 13.5% |
| Lawful Development Certificate | 5,011 | 4,804 | 36.9% |
| Commercial Appeal Service (CAS) | 4,553 | 4,416 | 33.3% |
| Listed Building Consent & Conservation Area Consent Appeal | 4,182 | 3,693 | 25% |
| Tree Preservation Order | 3,132 | 2,903 | 20.6% |
| Advertisement Appeal | 1,621 | 1,453 | 36% |
| Rights of Way Opposed Orders | 1,027 | 0 | None judged |
| Rights Of Way - Schedule 14D | 835 | 0 | None judged |
| Common Land | 715 | 0 | None judged |
| High Hedges | 469 | 246 | 28.5% |
| Appeal against Enforcement Listed Building Notice/Enforcement Conservation Area Notice | 458 | 360 | 8.1% |
| Environmental | 346 | 0 | None judged |
| Rights Of Way - Schedule 14A | 278 | 0 | None judged |
| Community Infrastructure Levy Appeal | 212 | 206 | 25.2% |
| Commercial Appeals Service (Adverts) | 198 | 196 | 27.6% |
| Rights of Way Modifications | 139 | 113 | 100% |
| Section 106 Agreement | 124 | 118 | 39.8% |
| Called In Planning Application | 80 | 76 | 72.4% |
| Advert Discontinuance | 68 | 68 | 19.1% |
| Hedgerow | 59 | 53 | 17% |
| Tree Replacement Notice | 59 | 47 | 31.9% |
| Section 106BC (Affordable Housing) | 23 | 21 | 71.4% |
| Purchase Notice | 8 | 0 | None judged |
| Marine and Coastal Access | 5 | 0 | None judged |
| Commercial Appeals Service (Planning) | 4 | 3 | 0% |
| No appeal type associated | 2 | 2 | 100% |
“Allowed” is the share of judged appeals the appellant won, so a high figure means the council’s decisions of that kind are not standing. 11,527 cases were judged neither way, having been withdrawn, declared invalid, split or left unrecorded, and are counted but never treated as appeals the council won. Types with no judged case have no rate to publish, and are shown as such rather than as a zero.
The Inspectorate decides planning appeals in England only. 67 of the authorities SiteLens tracks are outside that jurisdiction: Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have their own appeal body, so an absence of planning appeals on those councils means a different body decides them rather than that they are never appealed. A few of the Inspectorate’s other functions, such as common land, do run beyond England, and those cases are in the totals above. A further 7 English authorities hold no case of their own here, and that is mostly not because they are never appealed: an authority that has been reorganised, or that we list twice, has its cases counted once under whichever entry the Inspectorate files them against. The rest either had no appeal decided or cannot be matched to the Inspectorate’s records at all. Of the 187,988 cases on file, 185,092 are attributed to an authority we track.
What is being built
The mix of application types across the UK over the last 12 months. Householder applications lead by volume, but the bigger schemes lower down the list are where most supply-chain value sits.
Share of categorised applications, last 12 months.
The scale of the pipeline
Of 239,757 applications in the last 12 months, 7,656 were major schemes: the larger developments that pull in the most trades and suppliers. Where an estimated value band is known, 7,166 sit at £1m or above and 4,410 at £5m+.
| Estimated value band | Applications (12 mo) | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under £10k | 20,092 | 14% |
| £10k–£50k | 38,347 | 26% |
| £50k–£100k | 54,229 | 37% |
| £100k–£500k | 17,469 | 12% |
| £500k–£1m | 8,981 | 6% |
| £1m–£5m | 2,756 | 2% |
| £5m–£20m | 2,699 | 2% |
| £20m+ | 1,711 | 1% |
| null | 2 | 0% |
Submissions are also counted upstream of the registers. The Planning Portal, which operates the national submission service, publishes a quarterly Planning Application Index from its own submission data, and its Q2 2026 edition records 412,130 new homes applied for across England, including London in the year ending June 2026, at 12.9 units per residential application in the quarter. That is a count of homes rather than of applications, so it belongs beside our pipeline figures and not beside our application totals. It publishes ahead of the government statistics, which is what makes it worth citing alongside them.
Where the activity is
The most active regions by application volume over the last 12 months. A region’s share reflects both its size and how much development is moving through its planning system.
Share of applications by region, last 12 months.
Fastest-growing councils right now
Local planning authorities with the biggest jump in application volume in the last 90 days versus the previous 90, the places heating up fastest. Limited to councils with a meaningful baseline so small-sample swings don’t distort the list.
| Council | Region | Prev 90d | Last 90d | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Westminster City Council | London | 311 | 1,934 | +1,623 (+522%) |
| Cornwall Council | South West | 405 | 1,755 | +1,350 (+333%) |
| Dorset Council | South West | 278 | 1,429 | +1,151 (+414%) |
| Leeds City Council | Yorkshire | 451 | 1,338 | +887 (+197%) |
| London Borough of Hounslow | London | 152 | 944 | +792 (+521%) |
| Babergh District Council | East of England | 90 | 823 | +733 (+814%) |
Methodology
Figures are derived from the public planning registers SiteLens monitors across UK local planning authorities. The activity date is when an application was validated (or received, where validation is not recorded). Volumes count applications in the stated window. The approval rate is the share of applications decided in the last 12 months that were granted. The median decision time is the typical span from receipt to decision over the same decisions. Momentum compares the last 90 days with the preceding 90. Coverage expands as more registers are tracked, so national totals are a floor, not a complete count. For the detail behind these numbers, see our UK planning statistics by council or explore any authority on its SiteLens council page.
The appeal figures are not ours. They come from the Planning Inspectorate’s own Casework Database, published quarterly on GOV.UK: 187,988 cases with a decision date, appeals decided 2016-07 to 2026-06. Planning appeals in it are English; a small number of its other casework types run across England and Wales. A rate is measured over the cases judged either way, never over every case on file. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
National comparators: MHCLG, Planning applications in England: January to March 2026 (year ending March 2026, England, district level planning authorities), published 2026-06-19, Open Government Licence v3.0. Planning Portal (TerraQuest), Planning Application Index, Q2 2026 (year ending June 2026, England, including London), published 2026-08-03.
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