UK planning approval statistics
A national overview of planning approval rates, calculated across 2,698,861 substantive planning decisions from 310 councils. The data behind the headlines.
Last updated: September 2026
Key findings
Across every council on PlanningLens (310 councils, 2,698,861 decided applications), 87.43% of planning applications are approved (as of September 2026). This is a decision-weighted figure: total approvals divided by total decisions, all years, no exclusions. It is recalculated every time new data is added, so the as-of date matters when comparing figures across articles or sites.
Average council approval rate: 85.4% (as of September 2026). This is the unweighted average of each council's own rate across the 91 ranked councils: it answers 'what does the typical council approve?' The national headline figure (87.43%) is decision-weighted and answers 'what are the odds for a typical application?' The two differ because the councils that decide the most applications tend to approve a slightly smaller share of them. The ranking covers the 91 councils in England that meet our published eligibility rules, on substantive development-control decisions dated 1 January 2020 to present. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland sit outside it until equivalent coverage validation exists, which is a limit on what we can verify rather than a judgement about their data.
Among the 91 ranked councils, the strictest, Brent, approves just 70.15% of applications, while the most permissive, Rushmoor, approves 95.95%.
This 25.8 percentage point gap means that the same application could face very different odds depending on which council area it falls in. Location is one of the strongest indicators of planning outcomes.
Approval rate by application type (national average)
Distribution of approval rates
Across all 310 councils on PlanningLens, individual council rates cluster around the 85.4% council average, but the tails are significant. 0 councils have approval rates below 70%, meaning nearly a third or more of applications are refused. 118 councils approve 90% or more. These counts cover every published council, including those too small to be ranked.
Planning professional? PlanningLens runs refusal alerts and evidence packs for any published UK council — see the data services →