Planning Approval Rates by Council — England League Table (2026) | PlanWatch
Open Data · MHCLG official statistics

Easiest & Hardest Councils for Planning Permission in England

Official planning approval rates for every English local authority, from the government's PS2 statistics (1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025) — blended with the live planning activity PlanWatch tracks. Find your council, or see who says yes most often.

87%
England approval rate
90.6%
decided in time
300,645
decisions analysed
307
authorities ranked

Suggestions cover the ranked councils. For any authority, visit /planning-approval-rates/<council>.

✅ Easiest councils to get planning permission

#CouncilRegionApproval
1FarehamSouth East98%
2Hammersmith and FulhamLondon97.2%
3North KestevenEast Midlands97.2%
4CumberlandNorth West96.8%
5Redcar and ClevelandNorth East96.7%
6CheltenhamSouth West96.5%
7MansfieldEast Midlands96.4%
8BolsoverEast Midlands96.3%
9City of LondonLondon96.2%
10RedditchWest Midlands96.2%

🚫 Hardest councils to get planning permission

#CouncilRegionApproval
310Epping ForestEast of England66.1%
309Barking and DagenhamLondon66.2%
308HounslowLondon68.3%
307Windsor and MaidenheadSouth East68.9%
306GraveshamSouth East71.6%
305Oadby and WigstonEast Midlands71.7%
304HaveringLondon72.8%
303Mole ValleySouth East73%
302RedbridgeLondon74%
301Waltham ForestLondon74.4%

Approval rates by region

North East
91.7%
14 authorities · 91.5% in time
National Parks
91.2%
10 authorities · 87.8% in time
East Midlands
89.8%
35 authorities · 88% in time
South West
89.5%
27 authorities · 89.8% in time
North West
88.3%
35 authorities · 92.1% in time
West Midlands
87.8%
30 authorities · 89.3% in time
Yorkshire and the Humber
87.4%
15 authorities · 89.4% in time
South East
87.2%
65 authorities · 90.9% in time
East of England
86.1%
45 authorities · 91.1% in time
London
82.5%
34 authorities · 91.8% in time

Explore further

By development scale: major · minor · other. Download the full dataset: JSON · CSV.

Methodology

Figures are from the government's official PS2 district planning application statistics (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government), 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025, England only. Councils with fewer than 50 decisions are excluded from rankings for reliability. Approval rate is a historic average and not a prediction for any individual application.