Planning Permission in London: Every Borough Ranked

If you own a home in London and you're thinking about extending, converting, or building, the borough you live in makes an enormous difference to your likelihood of getting planning permission.

We know this because we've now analysed over 2,500,000+ planning decisions across every London borough — not government summaries, but actual application-level data. The picture is stark, and the differences between boroughs are far larger than most homeowners realise.

London vs the Rest of England

The national average approval rate across all councils in the PlanningLens dataset sits at around 88%. London boroughs average roughly 84% — and several fall well below that.

That four-point gap might sound small, but it represents thousands of homeowners every year being told no. When you compare London's toughest boroughs (approval rates in the mid-70s) against rural councils that approve above 95%, the gap becomes enormous.

London boroughs dominate the bottom quarter of national planning approval rankings. If you're planning a project in the capital, the odds are stacked slightly differently than they are elsewhere.

Every London Borough, Ranked

Here's the complete picture. All 33 London boroughs ranked from highest to lowest approval rate, based on our analysis of over 2,500,000+ decisions.

City of London is an outlier — it handles mostly commercial applications and is not comparable to residential boroughs. But Wandsworth at 93.5% is genuinely remarkable. It's one of the most permissive planning authorities in the country, not just in London.

The inner London boroughs that top this list — Kensington & Chelsea, Camden, Westminster — might surprise you. Despite being dense and heavily conservation-area-covered, they approve at very high rates. The likely explanation: homeowners in these areas tend to submit well-designed, professionally prepared applications that comply with local policy.

The mid-range is where most London boroughs sit. Note the scale of some of these datasets: Islington has 84,166 decided applications in our database, and Hounslow has 72,120. These are not small samples.

🔍 Check your London postcode to see your ward's approval rate — not just the borough average.

Brent sits at the bottom with a 76.0% approval rate — meaning roughly one in four applications is refused. That's significantly worse than the national average and makes Brent one of the toughest planning authorities in the entire country.

The boroughs in this tier share some common characteristics: they tend to be outer London boroughs experiencing significant development pressure, with high volumes of HMO and flat conversion applications that face tougher scrutiny.

The Surprising Pattern

The data overturns a common assumption. Many people expect inner London to be tougher than outer London. But the numbers tell a different story.

Several wealthy inner London boroughs — Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster, Camden — actually approve at rates above 90%. Meanwhile, outer boroughs like Brent, Hillingdon, and Redbridge sit below 80%.

The likely explanation: inner London homeowners spend more on professional advice and architectural design. A well-prepared application that anticipates planning policy is far more likely to succeed than one that doesn't — regardless of which borough it's in.

Within Boroughs, Wards Vary Enormously

This is something most homeowners don't realise. Your borough's average approval rate might be 80%. But the ward your property sits in could be 68% — or 92%.

Conservation area boundaries, listed building density, flood zones, and the character of the immediate streetscape all create micro-environments within a single borough. Two streets a mile apart can have very different planning cultures.

We track ward-level data across all 33 London boroughs. When you check your postcode, you see your ward's specific approval rate — not just the borough average.

What London Homeowners Get Wrong

The most common mistake is assuming that because your neighbour got their extension approved, yours will be too. In London, context shifts quickly. A different ward, a conservation area boundary, a different application type — any of these can change the outcome.

The second most common mistake is going too big. London plots are tight. Planning officers in London are particularly alert to overdevelopment, loss of garden space, and impact on neighbouring properties. A proposal that would sail through in Surrey might face real resistance in Wandsworth or Croydon.

The homeowners who succeed in London tend to do more homework upfront. They look at what's been approved nearby — and what's been refused. They understand the specific pressures their ward's planning officers face. And they design accordingly.

The London Opportunity

London properties are worth more, which means extensions and conversions add more value. A rear extension in Wandsworth adds far more to your property value than the same extension in most other parts of England.

That means the cost of getting it wrong is also higher. A refusal doesn't just delay your project — in London, it can delay it by months while you redesign, resubmit, and wait again. And every month of delay has a cost.

Doing your homework before you apply isn't just sensible — in London, it's essential.

Start With the Data

PlanningLens now covers all 33 London boroughs with detailed ward-level analysis, drawn from over 2,500,000+ real planning decisions. That's approval rates by borough, by ward, and by extension type. Refusal pattern analysis. Comparable decisions near your property.

It won't guarantee approval — nothing can. But it will tell you what you're walking into before you spend a penny on drawings.

Data sourced from the GLA Planning London Datahub and individual council planning portals. Analysis covers all decided applications with a clear approved or refused outcome. Withdrawn applications and procedural outcomes are excluded. See our methodology for full details.