Recent data from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) shows a 12% decrease in all planning applications (109,900) submitted to English district level authorities for the first quarter or the year, when compared to the same period in 2021.
In terms of positive residential decisions, the data shows that 9,300 applications were granted, which is a 6% decrease on the same period in 2021. This was made up of 1,200 for major developments and 8,000 for minors. This is a repeated pattern of decline that’s been ongoing since 2018.
This is a concerning statistic, as the period it compares to was during the final lockdown of the pandemic, and yet still more residential applications were submitted in 2021.
For the full year, ending March 2022, these planning authorities granted 38,000 decisions on residential developments in total, of which 4,700 were for major developments and 33,200 were for minor developments. These figures are down by 4% for majors and 2% for minor developments. DLUHC reports that this is equivalent to a decrease of 3% overall in the total number of residential decisions granted.
The data shows applications rather than for numbers of homes, with this data extrapolated from wider data supplied by Glenigan. The provisional figures for the year ending in March 2022 indicates that planning was granted for 307,000 homes, down 2% on the previous year.
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Image: Number of housing units granted planning permission, England, year ending June 2009 to March 2022. Credit: Department for Levelling Up
