Ice bath planning trends
Councils received 67 ice bath applications in the 12 months to September 2026, 25 times the share of three years earlier.
Ice bath applications since 2016
Ice bath applications in every 10,000 planning applications, over the 12 months to each month
How this is measuredFrom a handful a year to 67
Councils received 1 to 4 ice bath applications a year from 2016 to 2023. There were 14 in 2024 and 33 in 2025. From January to September 2026 there were 52.
Q3 2026 against a year earlier
Councils received 20 ice bath applications in Q3 2026, too few to compare their share with a year earlier.
Ice bath applications each quarter
20 in Q3 2026, against 9 a year earlier.
Out of every 10,000 applications
As a share of every application: 1.9 in every 10,000 in Q3 2026, against 0.8 a year earlier.
Latest ice bath applications
- 7 Newbattle Terrace Morningside Edinburgh Install a movable barrel sauna and cold plunge tub in the rear of a listed building.
- Towers Health & Racquets Club Clapham Road Bedford Bedford Provision of external spa garden to include a hydro pool, sauna, plunge pools, toilet facilities and plant.
- Hill Farm Chesterton Road Lighthorne Warwick Change of use of land and existing pods to provide a nature-based wellness facility; including the erection and siting of a Mahal activity tent, sauna, changing facility, hot tub and cold-plunge facilities; construction of associated decking and a lakeside jetty; use of the existing lake for supervised swimming; provision or parking, landscaping, biodiversity enhancements and associate work.
- The Grove 95 Overstrand Road Cromer Norfolk Erection of two detached single-storey timber sauna cabins with two cold plunge baths and associated landscaping, to provide additional leisure and wellness facilities in association with the existing hospitality and leisure use at The Grove.
- The Quad Stubbings Estate Stubbings Lane Maidenhead Change of use to wellness facility to include replacement doors, installation of a new gate, 2 No. new saunas and 6 No. ice baths, raised timber walkways and associated landscaping within the external courtyard, for a temporary period of 10 years.
- The Quad Stubbings Estate Stubbings Lane Maidenhead Consent for change of use to wellness facility to include internal alterations, replacement doors, installation of a new gate, 2 No. new saunas and 6 No. ice baths, raised timber walkways and associated landscaping within the external courtyard, for a temporary period of 10 years.
Questions
How many ice bath planning applications are there in the UK?
Councils have received 114 since January 2016, 67 of them in the 12 months to September 2026. Their share of all applications is the highest since 2016.
Which councils receive the most ice bath applications?
Camden, Dover and City of Edinburgh have received the most since 2016.
Are ice bath planning applications rising?
Yes. Councils received 67 in the 12 months to September 2026, against 3 in the 12 months to September 2023. Their share of all applications is the highest since 2016.
What else has grown alongside ice bath applications?
Public saunas. Euronews reported in March 2025, citing the British Sauna Society, that UK public sauna sites rose from 45 in 2023 to 147, many with open-air ice baths. The rise in applications coincides with that growth.
About Plota
Plota is the UK's most visited planning search, according to Similarweb. It shows every new planning application from every UK council, read daily from 390 planning registers, with past applications back to 2016 from more than 420 registers, including those of councils since merged. It also covers planning committee decisions, HMO licences and premises licences.
How this is measured
What needs an application
Councils received 3 ice bath applications in the 12 months to September 2023 and 67 in the 12 months to September 2026.
Methodology
- What is counted: planning applications to UK councils whose description names ice baths or a close variant of the words, by the date each council received them. These are planning applications, not completed schemes; the largest energy and infrastructure projects are consented nationally rather than by councils, so they sit outside these counts.
- How matches are checked: we read the 200 most recent ice bath applications and 20 from every year since 2016 to confirm each one belongs.
- 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.
- A share is the number out of every 10,000 applications over the previous 12 months. Each topic is a number in every 10,000 planning applications, so trends compare when overall planning activity changes; the share still moves when either the topic's count or the total does. This topic has no planning index: councils received fewer than 20 in 2016, too few to measure change against.
- Source: the planning registers of every UK council, January 2016 to September 2026, read on 9 November 2026.
- Planning is seasonal, so each quarter is compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- 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.
- Download the data (CSV): every topic and theme, each quarter since 2016.
Sources
- Euronews, citing the British Sauna Society, reported in March 2025 that UK public sauna sites rose from 45 in 2023 to 147, many offering open-air ice baths. euronews.com