Planning Facts February 2021

Some interesting facts relating to planning in the past year:

40% more applications were submitted in November 2020 when compared to November 2019. There were 59,044 planning applications submitted through the planning portal in November 2020 compared to 44,677 in November of 2019.

Householder applications are up by 51%. This is probably due to families living and working and studying at home due to the lockdowns and the need for additional habitable space. 4D Planning have also experienced a sharp rise in enquiries for roof terraces, loft conversions and garage conversions among other residential developments.

832 prior approval applications were submitted in London and the South East for office to residential conversions between January and November 2020.

In contrast to the above, there was a decline in planning decisions issued by the local authorities. 

In 2020 there were approx. 311,800 applications granted permission which is a decline of 12% from the previous year. 40,400 of those decisions were for residential development. Of these 5200 were for major developments, down 14% on a year earlier and 35300 were for minor developments, down 11% on the previous year. In total there were 398,600 planning applications submitted to district councils in the year ending September 2020, which is 9% lower than the number submitted a year earlier.