Planning performance statistics: annual and quarterly reports, 2012-2016

7. Percentages under two months - Longer term annual trends for Local Developments

Annual trends for the percentages of local developments decided within 2 months are available over several years and these are shown in this section. Legacy cases have only been analysed separately for the past four years and therefore results for 2010/11 and 2011/12 are for all applications only.

7.1 All Local Developments

Numbers of decisions on local applications decreased between the years 2010/11 to 2012/13 but then increased in 2013/14. For the latest year there has again been a drop in the number of decisions (not included are the 514 local developments in 2015/16 that were subject to a processing agreement). There were 28,765 local applications (validated post 3rd August 2009) decided during the year 2015/16, and the percentage of these decisions made in less than two months was 73.4%, an increase from 72.1% in the previous year and the highest percentage over the past six years. When the 38 legacy cases in 2015/16 are included the percentage of decisions made in less than two months decreases slightly to 73.3% ( Annual, 2015/16: Table 4).

Chart 39: All Local developments: Number of decisions

Chart 40: All Local developments: Percentage under 2 months

7.2 Householder Developments

The number of decisions for householder applications fell to a low in 2012/13. The fall in figures between 2011/12 and 2012/13 can be partly explained by changes to permitted development rights. Permitted development rights are granted so that many instances of small alterations and extensions can be carried out without the need to submit an application for planning permission. In February 2012 these rights were extended to a wider range of categories and so led to a reduction in the number of householder developments that required planning permission. There were 13,641 applications (validated post 3rd August 2009) decided during the year 2015/16 and the percentage of decisions made in under two months was 85.7%, similar to 85.8% in the previous year but lower than the high of 86.4% for 2013/14 ( Annual, 2015/16: Table 6).

Chart 41: Householder developments: Number of decisions

Chart 42: Householder developments: Percentage under 2 months

7.3 Local Housing

The number of decisions for local housing applications fell to a low in 2012/13, followed by small increases in the following two years. For the most recent year there has again been a drop in the number decisions for local housing applications to 5,590. In 2015/16 the percentage of decisions made in under two months (for applications validated post 3rd August 2009) was 56.2%, the highest percentage over the past six years ( Annual, 2015/16: Table 10).

Chart 43: Local Housing developments: Number of decisions

Chart 44: Local Housing developments: Percentage under 2 months

7.4 Local Business & Industry

The number of decisions made for local business and industry applications fell to a low of 1,941 in the year 2015/16 (for applications validated post 3rd August 2009). The percentage of decisions made in under two months was 67.9%, the highest percentage over the past six years ( Annual, 2015/16: Table 12).

Chart 45: Local Business and Industry developments: Number of decisions

Chart 46: Local Business and Industry developments: Percentage under 2 months

7.5 Local Electricity Generation

There was a sharp increase in the number of decisions made on applications for local electricity generation (from 557 to 1,227) between 2010/11 and 2011/12. This has tailed off to 561 applications in 2015/16. At the same time the percentage of decisions made in less than two months dropped from 49.2% in 2010/11 to a low of 29.2% in 2012/13 (for applications validated post 3rd August 2009). This has improved to 43.7% for the most recent year ( Annual, 2015/16: Table 16).

Chart 47: Local Electricity Generation developments: Number of decisions

Chart 48: Local Electricity Generation developments: Percentage under 2 months

7.6 Local Other Developments

After householder developments applications for other developments are the most frequent type of local application. This is the category for developments that do not fall into one of the other specific categories of application and includes, for example, applications for retail developments, food and drink outlets, hotels, hospitals, schools and leisure & tourism developments. From 2010/11 to 2013/14 there was an improvement in the percentage of decisions made in under two months to a high of 67.7% (for applications validated post 3rd August 2009), the percentage dropped to 65.8% for 2014/15 but has improved to 67.4% for the latest year ( Annual, 2015/16: Table 20).

Chart 49: Local Other developments: Number of decisions

Chart 50: Local Other developments: Percentage under 2 months

Information on decisions for other specific categories of local developments is available within the detailed excel tables at: Planning Authority Performance Statistics 2015/16 Annual