Skip to content
PlanIndex Get alerts
Menu

Decision times · South East

How long planning decisions take in Canterbury

55 days.

In the year to December 2026, the median planning application decided by Canterbury took 55 days from submission to decision — 1 day inside the eight week target. That is measured across 1,380 decisions where the council published both dates.

This council carries a figure but no rank

Not ranked yet: our records do not yet pass the historical coverage, monthly continuity, missing-date and refresh checks for this window. The figure above is still what the published dates say; it is left out of the league table so it cannot distort the ranking. See the methodology.

55 days
Median decision 1 day inside the eight week target
61%
Within eight weeks 77% within thirteen
158 days
Nine in ten decided by The wait to budget for

How Canterbury compares

Year to December 2026

Canterbury decides faster than the country as a whole: 2 days below the national median of 57 days. Nationally 49% of applications are decided within eight weeks; here it is 61%.

The average here is 79 days, longer than the median because a handful of applications take very much longer than the rest. For planning around, 158 days is the more useful number: nine applications in ten were decided inside it.

  1. Within eight weeks the statutory target 836 61%
  2. Eight to thirteen weeks the major development band 224 16%
  3. Over thirteen weeks commonly an agreed extension 320 23%

The last few years

Each row is a full twelve months of decisions, ending in the quarter shown

Rolling twelve month windows overlap by nine months, so this reads as a trend rather than as four separate quarters. Only windows our records reach far enough back to measure in full are listed.

Canterbury: median days from application to decision, by rolling twelve month window. Source: PlanIndex, planindex.co.uk.
Twelve months to Median days UK rank
September 2026 52 9 of 56
June 2026 48 4 of 39

By type of application

Year to December 2026 · types with at least ten decisions

The headline median mixes every kind of application together. A householder extension and an outline application for a housing site are not the same job, and the difference between them is usually larger than the difference between two councils.

  1. Heritage and listed buildings 337 decided 36 days
  2. Trees 55 decided 48 days
  3. Amendments 85 decided 51 days
  4. Lawful development 63 decided 56 days
  5. Full applications 552 decided 59 days
  6. Advertising 24 decided 65 days
  7. Outline 11 decided 96 days

How these types compare nationally

What Canterbury decides

Year to December 2026

Canterbury issued 1,380 decisions in the year to December 2026. Of the clear-cut outcomes, 97% were approvals: 1,258 granted against 36 refused. Split decisions, withdrawals and other outcomes sit outside that percentage rather than being counted as either.

Speed and approval rate are separate things. A council that refuses quickly is not doing the same job as one that negotiates an approval slowly, and neither figure alone says which served the applicant better.

Common questions

How long does a planning decision take in Canterbury?

The median planning application decided by Canterbury in the year to December 2026 took 55 days from submission to decision, 1 day inside the eight week target. That is measured across 1,380 decisions where the council published both a start date and a decision date.

Does Canterbury meet the eight week target?

61% of the 1,380 decisions Canterbury made in the year to December 2026 came within eight weeks of the application being received, and 77% within thirteen weeks. Nine in ten were decided within 158 days. Councils can agree an extension of time with an applicant, so a decision past eight weeks is not necessarily a missed deadline.

Is Canterbury faster or slower than average?

Canterbury is faster than average: its median of 55 days is 2 days below the national median of 57 days.

What proportion of applications does Canterbury approve?

97% of the clear-cut outcomes Canterbury issued in the year to December 2026 were approvals: 1,258 granted against 36 refused. Split decisions, withdrawals and other outcomes are excluded from that percentage.

Cite these figures

Click the text to select the whole citation.

Canterbury planning decision times, year to December 2026: median 55 days from application to decision (1 day inside the eight week target), across 1,380 decisions with both dates published. 61% were decided within the eight week statutory target, 77% within thirteen weeks; nine in ten within 158 days. 97% of clear-cut outcomes were approvals. Source: PlanIndex, planindex.co.uk.

Or take the data itself: this council's history (CSV) or the full league table (CSV).

Embed these figures

Paste either snippet into your page. Click a snippet to select all of it. The credit line is part of the embed.

<script src="https://planindex.co.uk/embed/decision-times.js" data-council="canterbury" defer></script>

If your CMS strips scripts, use the frame directly:

<iframe src="https://planindex.co.uk/embed/decision-times/canterbury" title="Planning decision times in Canterbury" width="100%" height="215" loading="lazy" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p>Data: <a href="https://planindex.co.uk/planning-decision-times/canterbury">Planning decision times, from PlanIndex</a></p>