Skip to content
PlanIndex Get alerts
Menu

Decision times · East of England

How long planning decisions take in Great Yarmouth

81 days. Ranked 42 of 45.

In the year to December 2026, the median planning application decided by Great Yarmouth took 81 days from submission to decision — 25 days beyond the eight week target. That is measured across 619 decisions where the council published both dates.

81 days
Median decision 25 days beyond the eight week target
42 of 45
UK rank down 18 places in a year
24%
Within eight weeks 57% within thirteen
284 days
Nine in ten decided by The wait to budget for

How Great Yarmouth compares

Year to December 2026

Great Yarmouth takes longer than the country as a whole: 24 days above the national median of 57 days. Nationally 49% of applications are decided within eight weeks; here it is 24%.

The average here is 142 days, longer than the median because a handful of applications take very much longer than the rest. For planning around, 284 days is the more useful number: nine applications in ten were decided inside it.

  1. Within eight weeks the statutory target 146 24%
  2. Eight to thirteen weeks the major development band 204 33%
  3. Over thirteen weeks commonly an agreed extension 269 43%

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.

Great Yarmouth: median days from application to decision, by rolling twelve month window. Source: PlanIndex, planindex.co.uk.
Twelve months to Median days UK rank
December 2026 81 42 of 45
September 2026 85 54 of 56
June 2026 94 39 of 39
March 2026 152 35 of 38
December 2025 212 24 of 24
September 2025 155 27 of 27
June 2025 133 31 of 31
March 2025 109 30 of 30
December 2024 101 56 of 57

Against the same twelve months a year earlier, when the median was 212 days, Great Yarmouth has moved down 18 places in the table.

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. Telecoms 27 decided 28 days
  2. Amendments 12 decided 71 days
  3. Trees 85 decided 73 days
  4. Householder 116 decided 74 days
  5. Advertising 16 decided 78 days
  6. Prior approval 15 decided 84 days
  7. Conditions 155 decided 88 days
  8. Full applications 117 decided 126 days

How these types compare nationally

What Great Yarmouth decides

Year to December 2026

Great Yarmouth issued 619 decisions in the year to December 2026. Of the clear-cut outcomes, 88% were approvals: 474 granted against 67 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 Great Yarmouth?

The median planning application decided by Great Yarmouth in the year to December 2026 took 81 days from submission to decision, 25 days beyond the eight week target. That is measured across 619 decisions where the council published both a start date and a decision date. It ranks 42 of 45 UK councils on decision speed.

Does Great Yarmouth meet the eight week target?

24% of the 619 decisions Great Yarmouth made in the year to December 2026 came within eight weeks of the application being received, and 57% within thirteen weeks. Nine in ten were decided within 284 days. Councils can agree an extension of time with an applicant, so a decision past eight weeks is not necessarily a missed deadline.

Is Great Yarmouth faster or slower than average?

Great Yarmouth is slower than average: its median of 81 days is 24 days above the national median of 57 days.

Is Great Yarmouth getting faster or slower?

Against the same twelve month window a year earlier, when its median was 212 days, Great Yarmouth has moved down 18 places in the table. Its median has fallen by 131 days.

What proportion of applications does Great Yarmouth approve?

88% of the clear-cut outcomes Great Yarmouth issued in the year to December 2026 were approvals: 474 granted against 67 refused. Split decisions, withdrawals and other outcomes are excluded from that percentage.

Cite these figures

Click the text to select the whole citation.

Great Yarmouth planning decision times, year to December 2026: median 81 days from application to decision (25 days beyond the eight week target), across 619 decisions with both dates published. 24% were decided within the eight week statutory target, 57% within thirteen weeks; nine in ten within 284 days. Ranked 42 of 45 UK councils on decision speed (national median 57 days). 88% 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="great-yarmouth" defer></script>

If your CMS strips scripts, use the frame directly:

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