Decision times · By application type
How long each type of planning application takes
19 days to 99 days, depending what you are asking for.
Across 351,622 decisions from 343 UK councils in the year to September 2026, the median wait ranged from 19 days for telecoms to 99 days for reserved matters. The type of application changes the wait more than the choice of council does.
Every council's headline figure mixes its whole caseload together. That is the right way to summarise a council, but it hides something useful: a tree works consent, a discharge of conditions and an outline application for a housing site are not the same job, and they do not take the same time. The spread below is wider than the spread between all but the most extreme councils.
Categories are derived from what each council publishes — the application type wording first, then the reference suffix, then the source's own hint. Councils do not share a taxonomy, so this is a mapping, not a standard. Types with fewer than 25 decisions nationally are left out.
Median days by application type
Year to September 2026 · 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026
| Application type | Median days | Within 8 weeks | 9 in 10 by | Decisions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Telecoms | 19 | 94% | 53 | 3,286 |
| Other | 28 | 82% | 79 | 3,954 |
| Prior approval | 37 | 87% | 61 | 11,977 |
| Trees | 38 | 83% | 66 | 56,506 |
| Amendments | 46 | 66% | 113 | 18,673 |
| Outline | 50 | 62% | 158 | 9,935 |
| Conditions | 55 | 56% | 138 | 46,671 |
| Lawful development | 55 | 65% | 88 | 24,194 |
| Householder | 59 | 46% | 111 | 45,629 |
| Advertising | 60 | 45% | 131 | 8,168 |
| Heritage and listed buildings | 66 | 38% | 157 | 19,216 |
| Full applications | 69 | 34% | 170 | 102,225 |
| Reserved matters | 99 | 21% | 270 | 1,188 |
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Telecoms 3,286 decided 19 days
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Other 3,954 decided 28 days
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Prior approval 11,977 decided 37 days
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Trees 56,506 decided 38 days
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Amendments 18,673 decided 46 days
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Outline 9,935 decided 50 days
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Conditions 46,671 decided 55 days
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Lawful development 24,194 decided 55 days
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Householder 45,629 decided 59 days
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Advertising 8,168 decided 60 days
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Heritage and listed buildings 19,216 decided 66 days
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Full applications 102,225 decided 69 days
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Reserved matters 1,188 decided 99 days
Reading these figures
The eight week target applies to most of these types, which is what makes the spread interesting: the same statutory clock produces very different real outcomes depending on what is being decided. Some of that is genuine complexity — a reserved matters application follows an outline permission and carries the detail of a whole scheme. Some of it is process: prior approval and telecoms applications run on their own shorter statutory clocks, which is why they sit at the fast end rather than because they are treated as urgent.
A category is a mapping from what councils publish, not a legal classification. Where a council's wording is ambiguous, the application falls into a broader bucket rather than being guessed into a narrow one, so the large categories are more mixed than the small ones.
For a specific council
Each council's own page carries the same breakdown for its own caseload, alongside its rank and trend. That is usually the more useful comparison: a council that looks slow overall may simply decide more of the kinds of application that take longer everywhere.
Cite these figures
Click the text to select the whole citation.
Planning decision times by application type, year to September 2026: the median ranges from 19 days for telecoms to 99 days for reserved matters, across 351,622 decisions from 343 UK councils. The national median across all types is 56 days. Source: PlanIndex, planindex.co.uk.