Planning decisions in Shepway

How long Shepway takes to decide a planning application and how many it approves, from the 693 decisions it made in the twelve months to August 2026. Days run from validation to decision, the clock the council reports against; the wait from receipt is shown beside it. How the figures are made.

55 daysmedian from validation to decision (UK 52)
59%decided within eight weeks (UK 73%), 87% within thirteen
83%approved (UK 89%): 556 approved, 110 refused, 27 withdrawn
55 of 339UK rank for speed, down 17 places on last year; 301 of 339 for approvals
05691 September 2025: 53 days, 118 decisionsSeptOctober 2025: 53 days, 149 decisionsOctNovember 2025: 50 days, 101 decisionsNovDecember 2025: 50 days, 140 decisionsDecJanuary 2026: 56 days, 104 decisionsJanFebruary 2026: 64 days, 54 decisionsFebMarch 2026: 87 days, 22 decisionsMarApril 2026: 125 days, 5 decisionsApr
Median days from validation to decision, by month of decision. Dashed line: UK median (52 days). Grid at 56 and 91 days, the eight and thirteen week targets.

By year

Year decidedMedian daysWithin 8 weeksApprovedDecisions
2016 *5671%91%36
2017 *5671%98%63
2018 *4278%83%92
2019 *6840%76%90
2020 *5166%94%166
2021 *2878%79%103
2022 *3571%86%98
2023 *3072%86%90
2024 *5261%94%327
2025 *4688%83%41
2026 so far718

* Years from our archive, which carries no validation date: timed from receipt, so a few days longer than the live years above them.

Past their target date now

Built nightly from Shepway's planning register. Ranks are among the 339 published councils. See planning applications in Shepway, appeals, or get alerts for Shepway.

About these figures

How are decision times measured?
Days from the date the council validated the application to the date it decided it, for applications approved or refused in the window. That is the clock councils report against and the official statistics use. Each council’s page also shows the count from receipt, which is what the applicant actually waited. Withdrawn and undecided applications are not timed.
Why do these figures differ from the council’s own?
Councils count an agreed extension of time as decided on time; we treat the calendar as the calendar. Our figures are also live and rolling, where official statistics are quarterly and annual. So a council’s own within-eight-weeks figure will usually sit a little above ours.
What counts as approved?
Approval rate is approvals divided by approvals plus refusals. Withdrawals, and decisions whose outcome the register does not state, are counted in the totals but not in the rate.
Why is a council missing?
A council is published when it has at least 25 timed decisions in the window and its register’s decision data passes our consistency checks. Councils that fail are listed with the reason rather than shown with a number that would mislead.
How often is this updated?
Nightly, from the decisions we collect from every council register we monitor. The window is the twelve months to the last complete month.