Speeding up the LPA tortoise

For years the tortoise has worn racing ferrari camouflage, which has fooled nobody except maybe the government. Now the camouflage has been stripped off, for all to see the painfully slow pace at which LPAs decide planning applications. I’m referring to those “extension of time” agreements being stripped away from the LPA’s performance figures.

Suddenly the false claim that 88% of major planning applications are decided within statutory timescales becomes only 19%, if you ignore “agreed extensions of time”.  Thank goodness the pretense is finally over. At last we can explain to clients it’s not just their planning application that has gone over time….and that they are not an isolated case.

Speed of deciding planning applications in your LPA

The picture varies tremendously from one LPA to another, with the best deciding 67% of planning applications for major development within 13 weeks while the worst languish at 0%. For non-major planning applications the range is 0% - 80%. For householder planning applications it’s an amazing range of 2% - 100%. To get the picture for your area, see our handy table listing the results for every LPA.

(Table updated Oct 2024 with the latest MHCLG data for the 12 months ending June 2024)