Planning Performance Statistics 2020/21: Quarterly (October 2020 To March 2021)

Applications for Major Developments (excludes legacy cases)

There were 152 decisions on major developments in the final six months of 2020/21, 16 more than in the same period in the previous year. The average decision time for the 89 of these not subject to processing agreements was 43.4 weeks, almost eight weeks slower than the 35.7 weeks for the same period in 2019/20.

The average decision time figures of 35.9 and 53.1 weeks for quarters three and four have been strongly influenced by a number of lengthier decision times, including 22 decision times of longer than a year – 7 in quarter three and 15 in quarter four. Two in quarter three and three in quarter four had decision times of longer than two years. The longest in quarter three taking 5.7 years and in quarter four the longest took just under ten years.

If the applications that took over two years are excluded the average decision time for quarter three would be 27.2 weeks, more than 8 weeks quicker. For quarter four the average decision time would be 36.1 weeks, a reduction of 17 weeks.

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

In quarter three of 2020/21 there were 40 major development applications with processing agreements, 60.0% (24) met agreed timescales that had been set between developers and local authorities. In quarter four there were 23, 60.9% (14) meeting the agreed timescales.

In quarter three major applications with processing agreements accounted for 44% of all the decisions made for major developments (40 of 90). In quarter four this dropped to 37%, 23 of 62 major applications.

There was also one Major Development pre 3rd August 2009 legacy case determined. Further details about legacy cases can be seen in Section 10.