Planning performance statistics 2020/2021: quarterly (April 2020 to September 2020)

Applications for Major Developments (excludes legacy cases)

There were 120 decisions on major developments in the first six months of 2020/21, 51 fewer than in the same period in the previous year. The average decision time for the 82 of these not subject to processing agreements was 39.0 weeks, over seven weeks slower than the 31.7 weeks for the same period in 2019/20. Both the number of applications and average decision times were impacted on by restrictions due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The average decision time figures of 35.9 and 41.2 weeks for quarters one and two have been influenced by a number of lengthier decision times, including 15 decision times of longer than a year – six in quarter one and nine in quarter two. Two applications in quarter one took over two years, three applications in quarter two had decision times of over 2 years, two of these taking over four years.

If the applications that took over two years are excluded the average decision time for quarter one would be 31.1 weeks, almost five weeks quicker. For quarter two the average decision time would be 31.9 weeks, a reduction of more than nine weeks.

Further information on the distribution of decision times for major development applications is given in Annex A.