Satellite dish planning trends
The satellite dish planning index stands at 20: dishes take about a fifth of their 2016 share, with 59 in the year to September 2026.
Satellite dish applications since 2016
Satellite dish applications in every 10,000 planning applications, over the 12 months to each month
How this is measuredFrom 480 a year to 71
Councils received 478 dish applications in 2017 and 72 in 2025. Their share peaked at 7.9 in every 10,000 applications in the year to August 2017. Most of the fall came before Sky launched Sky Glass, a television that needs no dish, in October 2021.
Q3 2026 against a year earlier
Councils received 16 satellite dish applications in Q3 2026, too few to compare their share with a year earlier.
Satellite dish applications each quarter
16 in Q3 2026, against 26 a year earlier.
Out of every 10,000 applications
As a share of every application: 1.6 in every 10,000 in Q3 2026, against 2.4 a year earlier.
Where satellite dish applications concentrate
Councils with the most
Applications since 2016
-
Westminster
London · 28 in every 10,000 166 -
Dumfries and Galloway
Scotland · 33 in every 10,000 54 -
Highland
Scotland · 15 in every 10,000 53 -
North Yorkshire
Yorkshire and Humber · 7.4 in every 10,000 50 -
Dorset
South West · 7.2 in every 10,000 35 -
Argyll and Bute
Scotland · 18 in every 10,000 29 -
Durham
North East · 11 in every 10,000 29 -
Camden
London · 9.5 in every 10,000 28 -
Telford and Wrekin
West Midlands · 17 in every 10,000 28 -
City of Edinburgh
Scotland · 5.4 in every 10,000 27
Latest satellite dish applications
- Aylesford Open Storage Park Bull Lane Eccles Aylesford Kent Prior Telecommunications Notification: Schedule 2, Part 16, Class A of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 (as amended) Installation of electronic communications apparatus consisiting of 40 satellite antennas, fibre supply equipment cabinet, feeder pillar cabinet, metering kiosk and cables
- Offices And Premises At 1st Floor The Interchange Oval Road London Removal of satellite dishes and related equipment, including gantries, access ladders, and fixings, and associated works of removal and making good.
- 27 - 29 Midland Road Bedford Bedfordshire Part Change of Use to Sui Generis (Betting Office) and external alterations to include installation of air conditioning units and satellite dishes. ,
- Preston House & Preston House Barn, Woodleigh Removal of 2 no. oil-fired boilers and 2 no. external oil storage tanks, and replacement with 2 no. air source heat pumps. Retrospective installation of a satellite dish.
- Preston House and Preston House Barn Woodleigh Removal of 2 no. oil-fired boilers and 2 no. external oil storage tanks, and replacement with 2 no. air source heat pumps. Retrospective installation of a satellite dish.
- Building 1 Chiswick Park, 566 Chiswick High Road, Chiswick, London Installation of five new and the removal of three satellite dishes on the roof top of the building
Questions
How many planning applications mention satellite dishes?
Councils have received 2,297 since January 2016, 59 of them in the 12 months to September 2026. Their share peaked in the 12 months to August 2017.
Which councils receive the most satellite dish applications?
Westminster, Dumfries and Galloway and Highland have received the most since 2016.
Are satellite dish applications rising or falling?
Falling. In the 12 months to September 2026, dishes' share of applications was 36% lower than three years earlier. The satellite dish planning index stands at 20: about a fifth of the 2016 share.
Why do so few satellite dishes need planning permission?
In England, permitted development rights allow up to two antennas on a building under 15 metres, within size limits, without an application. The rules are tighter in conservation areas and National Parks, and where a dish faces a highway there.
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
Most domestic dishes are permitted development and need no planning application. These figures also include applications to remove dishes.
Methodology
- What is counted: planning applications to UK councils whose description names satellite dishes 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 satellite dish 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 satellite dish 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
- Schedule 2, Part 16, Class C of the General Permitted Development (England) Order 2015 allows up to two antennas on a building under 15 metres within size limits, with tighter limits on article 2(3) land such as conservation areas and National Parks, including dishes on a chimney, wall or roof slope fronting a highway. legislation.gov.uk
- Sky Glass launched in the UK in October 2021 and streams over broadband with no satellite dish required. en.wikipedia.org