Place of worship planning trends
Place of worship applications reached 340 in 2025, the most in any year since 2016, while planning applications overall fell.
Place of worship applications since 2016
Place of worship applications in every 10,000 planning applications, over the 12 months to each month
How this is measuredA larger share of a shrinking total
Applications fell to 236 in 2022, then rose to 340 in 2025. All applications fell, so the share rose faster, from 4.3 to 7.5 in every 10,000. The place of worship planning index stands at 147: nearly half as much again as the 2016 share.
Highest in the North and Leicester
From 2023 to 2025, places of worship made up 11 in every 10,000 applications in Yorkshire and Humber and the North West, and 9.3 in the East Midlands, against 6.8 across the UK. Northern Ireland was lowest at 3.2. Leicester leads councils with 103.
Q3 2026 against a year earlier
Councils received 80 place of worship applications in Q3 2026: 7.8 in every 10,000 applications, against 8.0 in Q3 2025, a share of all applications 2% lower than a year earlier.
Place of worship applications each quarter
80 in Q3 2026, against 87 a year earlier.
Out of every 10,000 applications
As a share of every application: 7.8 in every 10,000 in Q3 2026, against 8.0 a year earlier.
Where place of worship applications concentrate
By region
Place of worship applications in every 10,000 planning applications, 2023 to 2025
Councils with the most
Applications since 2016
-
Leicester
East Midlands · 51 in every 10,000 103 -
Hackney
London · 38 in every 10,000 87 -
Birmingham
West Midlands · 12 in every 10,000 78 -
Manchester
North West · 23 in every 10,000 62 -
City of Bradford
Yorkshire and Humber · 15 in every 10,000 61 -
Leeds
Yorkshire and Humber · 9.5 in every 10,000 56 -
Barking and Dagenham
London · 28 in every 10,000 47 -
Croydon
London · 13 in every 10,000 47 -
Newham
London · 21 in every 10,000 46 -
Redbridge
London · 9.2 in every 10,000 38
Latest place of worship applications
- 47 Grovelands Road Tottenham London Demolition of the existing two-storey synagogue building and erection of a replacement three-storey synagogue (Use Class F1(f)) on the same footprint and to the same height as the existing building together with the extension approved under planning permission HGY/2022/1199, including main synagogue, women's synagogue, mikvah and ancillary accommodation, with refuse and cycle storage and associated works.
- Munnelly House, 84 - 88 Pinner Road, North Harrow, Harrow Change of use from offices (Class E(g)(i)) to a Hindu temple (Class F1(f)) with ancillary community and educational activities, administrative offices, kitchen/canteen and caretaker's accommodation; installation of rooftop air-conditioning units, secondary glazing and a new external kitchen door; and associated access ramp, cycle parking, refuse storage and alterations to parking arrangements
- Microcab Industries Ltd, 51 Parkside, Coventry Change of use from research & development (use class E(g)(ii)) to a place of worship (use class F1(f)) and minor external alterations to building
- 7 - 9, Park Road North, Middlesbrough Erection of 3-storey mosque and cultural centre (Use Class F1) with associated car parking and landscaping
- Former Adullam Cave Chapel Chapel Street Haslingden Rossendale Lancashire Change of use from place of worship (F1 (f)) to children's home for up to 5 children (C2).
- St Lukes Family Centre Barnsley Road South Kirkby Pontefract Application for a certificate of Lawfulness for the proposed use of as an educational establishment within Class F1(a), providing specialist SEN education, with no physical development proposed, from a public worship/religious instruction (Class F1(f))
Questions
How many place of worship planning applications are there in the UK?
Councils have received 3,099 since January 2016, 312 of them in the 12 months to September 2026. Their share peaked in the 12 months to October 2025.
Which councils receive the most place of worship applications?
Leicester, Hackney and Birmingham have received the most since 2016.
Does every new place of worship appear in these figures?
No. These figures count applications that name worship, a mosque, synagogue, gurdwara, mandir, Hindu temple, prayer hall or use class F1(f). Planning rules say a move between uses in the same use class is not development, so it needs no application.
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 change between uses in the same class, such as one faith building becoming another, is not development and needs no planning application.
Methodology
- What is counted: planning applications to UK councils whose description names places of worship 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 place of worship 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 places of worship 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 primary uses within the same use class is not development; the 1 September 2020 changes abolished class D1 and placed places of worship in class F1. gov.uk
- Class F1(f) covers use for, or in connection with, public worship or religious instruction, in England from 1 September 2020. legislation.gov.uk