Application types

Summary

Not all planning applications are equal. Outline development permission — speculative applications to test whether land could be developed — has a 42.7% approval rate and takes an average of 445 days. Meanwhile, renewals sail through at 95.4%. The type of application you file dramatically affects your chances and wait time.

Key findings

Approval rates and processing times by application type

The outline permission anomaly

Outline development permission has the lowest approval rate by far at 42.7% — less than half. These are essentially "would you let me build here?" applications, and the answer is usually no. They also take the longest (445 days average), likely because they involve the most contentious sites and policy debates.

With 6,445 applications, this isn't a fringe category — but 2,838 of those were refused vs only 2,352 approved.

Sanctioning takes longer

Sanctioning applications take 30% longer to process than regular ones — 329 vs 254 days on average. The work is already done, but the bureaucratic process to legalize it is slower than getting permission first.

Quarrying: nearly 3 years

Quarrying applications average 932 days — over 2.5 years. Only 107 applications total, with a 68.9% approval rate. Mineral extraction is clearly the most contested and slow-moving application type.

DN (Development Notification) decisions

The minor works notification system has its own decision vocabulary:

DN cases are overwhelmingly approved (~82%), with "Not Accepted - Application Required" (688) meaning the works actually needed a full PA application.