Every planning decision British councils publish, in one place.
No single register lists what every UK council decides. PlanningLens builds one, indexing the portals of 309 planning authorities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each council page states the date its data runs to. The dataset is free to search, and the research below is drawn from it.
Findings from the dataset
Housing test hits councils approving major schemes at the same rate as councils it spares
MHCLG's own figures on 12,595 major housing decisions in English councils. Outside heavily Green Belt areas, councils below 75% on the 2025 Housing Delivery Test approved 81% of major housing decisions; so did councils at 95% or above. Where Green Belt covers a quarter or more of the land, the medians are 70.8% against 85.0%.
The Planning Dialect of Britain
Northern Ireland has sunrooms, England has conservatories. Scotland says attic, London says loft. Suffolk builds cart lodges. What four million UK planning application descriptions reveal about local words for buildings, extensions and places.
Committee vs Delegated: Who Decides, and Does It Change the Outcome?
Elected councillors decide only a small share of planning applications. When they do, the approval rate drops. Route data for every council that publishes it.
The Article 4 Wave: How England’s Councils Are Closing the HMO Loophole
Article 4 directions stripping permitted development rights from small HMOs are spreading across England, borough by borough.
The Eight-Week Myth
The statutory target is eight weeks. More than a third of householder decisions take longer. Where the gap is widest, and what it costs.
The HMO Squeeze
England is deciding nearly twice as many HMO applications as four years ago, and refusing a sharply rising share of them.
The AI Planning Scorecard
A pre-registered, independent benchmark of the government’s £8.2M Augmented Planning Decisions pilot, published before the results were known.
How the data is built
Every live figure on this site regenerates from council portal records; research briefings carry the date their data was frozen. The tiers, the exclusions and the known gaps are published in full.
New research
The AI Planning Scorecard: tracking the £8.2M MHCLG / Google DeepMind pilot at Barnet, Camden and Dorset. Read the briefing →
Why not just search the council website yourself?
The council portal shows you applications, one at a time. PlanningLens shows you approvals: how projects like yours actually fared, ward by ward, and how long decisions really took. Same public records, added up into an answer.
For planning consultants
Refusal intelligence for your patch
Refusal alerts
£79/month
No VAT chargeable.
Each week, new refusals across up to five councils of your choice, straight from portal decision lists, in your inbox while the appeal window is still open.
Start alerts →Evidence packs
£195 · £295
No VAT chargeable.
Comparable decisions, refusal reasons and portal records for one site, compiled into an appeal-ready pack.
See evidence packs →Planning permission in London
1,079,000+ decisions across all 33 boroughs. Your council gets the same treatment, whichever it is.
These are borough averages, your street could be very different. Check your postcode →
What has been approved near you
See what’s already been approved on your street, from 3,820,000+ real council decisions.
- Enter your postcode
- See real decisions nearby
- Free report, no signup
Planning professional? Evidence packs & refusal alerts →
1 in 8 refused · typical decision 8 weeks from 613 decisions in the S6 area
Sample for Sheffield S6. Enter your postcode above to see this for your street.
Built from the same public records the councils publish themselves, so our figures track the government’s own data. When we measured Canterbury’s householder decision times, we landed within two points of the official figure: 42% against 44%.
Which wards approve. Which refuse. Which design choices keep coming back. Free, property-specific PDF in your inbox in 2 minutes.
What are you planning?
Real approval rates, refusal patterns and timelines for your project type.
Popular councils
309 planning authorities covering 83%+ of the UK population. The most searched:
Frequently asked questions
Don’t see your area?
Tell us where you are and we’ll prioritise it. The more demand we see, the faster we add coverage.