Mosque planning trends
Mosques made up 0.9 in every 10,000 applications in the 12 months to September 2026, down from 1.2 a year earlier, when their share peaked.
Mosque applications since 2016
Mosque applications in every 10,000 planning applications, over the 12 months to each month
How this is measuredA peak in 2025, then a fall
Councils received 51 mosque applications in 2025, the highest yearly share since 2016. The share over 12 months peaked that September and has since fallen, but is still 33% above three years earlier. The mosque planning index stands at 96: close to its 2016 share.
Q3 2026 against a year earlier
Councils received 8 mosque applications in Q3 2026, too few to compare their share with a year earlier.
Mosque applications each quarter
8 in Q3 2026, against 17 a year earlier.
Out of every 10,000 applications
As a share of every application: 0.8 in every 10,000 in Q3 2026, against 1.6 a year earlier.
Where mosque applications concentrate
Councils with the most
Applications since 2016
-
Birmingham
West Midlands · 5.3 in every 10,000 34 -
City of Bradford
Yorkshire and Humber · 8.4 in every 10,000 34 -
Manchester
North West · 5.9 in every 10,000 16 -
Sheffield
Yorkshire and Humber · 4.9 in every 10,000 14 -
Blackburn with Darwen
North West · 14 in every 10,000 12 -
Glasgow
Scotland · 4.5 in every 10,000 12 -
Tower Hamlets
London · 7.3 in every 10,000 12 -
Walsall
West Midlands · 8.3 in every 10,000 12 -
Sandwell
West Midlands · 7.5 in every 10,000 11 -
Kirklees
Yorkshire and Humber · 3.4 in every 10,000 10
Latest mosque applications
- 7 - 9, Park Road North, Middlesbrough Erection of 3-storey mosque and cultural centre (Use Class F1) with associated car parking and landscaping
- 49 Eldon Road, Blackburn Proposed change of use from Mosque and Madrassah (Class F1(f)) to a mixed use (Sui Generis) as Mosque and Madrassah (F1(f)) and Children's Day Nursery (Class E (f))
- 1 House O'hill Road Corbiehill Edinburgh Proposed siting of storage container within curtilage of existing mosque.
- Luton Dawah Academy 48 Kingsway Luton Certificate of Lawfulness of Existing Use - External alterations and use of No. 48 Kingsway as a Mosque 'Place of Worship and Educational Facility' (Use Class F1). - Retrospective
- Nursery 72 Katherine Road East Ham London Proposed mixed-use operation of the building as an integrated Class F1 Islamic Community Centre (comprising a place of public religious worship and associated educational, charitable and community activities) across the ground and first floors; first floor rear infill extension; internal alterations to provide independent access and means of escape to the second-floor HMO; erection of a 4.2m high boundary fence to the rear outdoor area; erection of a 1.2m high guardrail; erection of an open-sided timber canopy to the rear outdoor area; and replacement of ground floor front elevation windows.
- Ukim Madinah Masjid Spencer Street Keighley West Yorkshire Construction of single storey detached building Ghusl (ablution) facility within existing mosque grounds
Questions
How many mosque planning applications are there in the UK?
Councils have received 446 since January 2016, 38 of them in the 12 months to September 2026. Their share peaked in the 12 months to September 2025.
Which councils get the most mosque applications?
Birmingham, City of Bradford and Manchester have received the most since 2016.
How many mosques are there in the UK?
These figures count planning applications, not buildings. A summer 2025 report by the Ayaan Institute estimated 1,884 mosques, 1,179 of them registered charities, according to the Religion Media Centre.
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
In England a building can change from one place of worship to another, such as a church to a mosque, without a planning application.
Methodology
- What is counted: planning applications to UK councils whose description names mosques 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 mosque 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. The mosque planning index sets the 2016 share at 100, so 200 means twice as common as in 2016.
- 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
- Movement between uses within the same use class is not development, so a change within Class F1 needs no planning application gov.uk
- Class F1 covers public worship, naming churches, synagogues and mosques planninggeek.co.uk
- The Ayaan Institute's summer 2025 report estimated 1,884 mosques, 1,179 of them registered charities religionmediacentre.org.uk