UK Planning Index

Methodology

• The UK figure is like for like: planning applications as the official planning statistics define them, including reserved matters and variations of conditions, by the date each was validated, each council compared on matching months in both years. The quarterly chart counts them the same way, at every council. Birmingham, with a validation backlog since June 2026, is left out of both years.
• Topic shares are out of every application councils receive, including certificates and prior approvals. Topic counts leave out, by design, works to trees and applications that only discharge conditions, amend an earlier permission or approve reserved matters, which follow a scheme already counted. Everything else is counted.
• Year on year: each topic's and theme's share of all applications in Q3 2026, against Q3 2025, at every council we hold. A share is the number in every 10,000 applications. Shares compare across councils and years; raw counts do not.
• Left out of the topic shares: Birmingham's applications from June to September 2026: a validation backlog at the council since June 2026: of 685 reference numbers it issued in September, its register lists 288. The same months a year earlier are left out too, so every comparison covers the same councils.
• Topics: each counts applications whose description names it, or a close variant of the words. An application can belong to more than one topic. Each topic's matches were checked one by one, by reading its 200 most recent applications and 20 from every year since 2016. Topics count planning applications, not completed schemes. The largest energy and infrastructure projects are consented nationally rather than by councils, so they sit outside these counts.
• The planning index: a topic's share of all applications over the previous 12 months, with its 2016 share set at 100. A topic with fewer than 20 applications in 2016 has none. It draws on 5.9 million applications from every UK council.
• Themes: each application counts once in a theme, even when it names two of the theme's topics, so the topics can add up to more than the theme.
• Source: the planning registers of every UK council, January 2016 to September 2026, read on 9 November 2026.
• Revisions: this edition replaces the one dated 8 November 2026. Four topics joined, moving three themes: Energy and climate 673 to 518, Home improvements 132 to 91 and The high street 74 to 69. Late-registered applications and the matched Birmingham months moved some changes on a year earlier. The UK figure, down 4.5%, is unchanged. The solar farms text now gives its index as 312, not 307.