Planning Report 1: How broken is the UK’s planning system?
Download Searchland’s UK planning whitepaper - the first in a three part series exploring the planning system’s biggest challenges and how to fix them.
We invited ten senior planning professionals from the UK’s biggest firms to discuss the planning system, challenges it faces and solutions to propose positive change.
Expect to uncover:
- The key bottlenecks slowing the UK planning system - and why they persist
- A decade of change in UK planning policy - mapped with real data
- Monumental changes across the past ten years
The numbers behind the headline
Decision times for major residential schemes rose from 243 days in 2015 to a peak of 364 days in 2022, before easing to 218 days in 2024. But speed isn't the real story - approval rates have held steady at roughly 68% throughout the decade, meaning applicants aren't being refused more often. They're submitting less.
The result: approved applications for major schemes fell from a peak of around 6,600 in 2016 to just 2,256 in 2024 - a 64% drop. Translated into homes, the approved pipeline collapsed from 690,519 dwellings in 2017 to 248,977 in 2024.
This report unpacks why - with ten senior planning professionals from Avison Young, Wates Residential, Persimmon Homes, Iceni Projects, Irwin Mitchell, Planning Potential and ROK Planning giving their view on where the system is actually breaking down.
Contributions from: Avison Young, Wates Residential, Persimmon Homes, Iceni Projects, Irwin Mitchell, Planning Potential, ROK Planning & Searchland
Want more? Read Planning Report 2: Rewiring the planning system - what will it take for the NPPF to deliver?
