UK planning approval statistics
A national overview of planning approval rates based on 3,795,507 real decisions across 305 councils. The data behind the headlines.
Last updated: August 2026
Key findings
Across every council on PlanningLens (305 councils, 3,795,507 decided applications), 88.6% of planning applications are approved (as of August 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: 90.3% (as of August 2026). This is the unweighted average of each council's own rate across the 292 ranked councils: it answers 'what does the typical council approve?' The national headline figure (88.6%) 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. Councils excluded for data-comparability reasons: Blackburn with Darwen, Buckinghamshire, Cheshire West & Chester, Chesterfield, Medway, Stroud. Councils with fewer than 300 decided applications are not ranked.
Among the 292 ranked councils, the strictest, Barking & Dagenham, approves just 71.7% of applications, while the most permissive, North Lanarkshire, approves 99.8%.
This 28.1 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 305 councils on PlanningLens, individual council rates cluster around the 90.3% council average, but the tails are significant. 0 councils have approval rates below 70%, meaning nearly a third or more of applications are refused. 180 councils approve 90% or more. These counts cover every published council, including those too small to be ranked.