Shipping container planning trends
Shipping container applications have barely changed since 2021, but the shipping container planning index stands at 252: two and a half times the 2016 share.
Shipping container applications since 2016
Shipping container applications in every 10,000 planning applications, over the 12 months to each month
How this is measuredA flat count and a rising share
Councils received 516 shipping container applications in 2021 and 547 in the 12 months to September 2026. Total applications fell over the same years.
Wales at more than twice the UK share
From 2023 to 2025 Wales received 22 shipping container applications in every 10,000, against 10 across the UK. The North East followed on 19. London was lowest, on 2.7. Cornwall has the most since 2016, with 90.
Q3 2026 against a year earlier
Councils received 141 shipping container applications in Q3 2026: 14 in every 10,000 applications, against 13 in Q3 2025, a share of all applications 6% higher than a year earlier.
Shipping container applications each quarter
141 in Q3 2026, against 142 a year earlier.
Out of every 10,000 applications
As a share of every application: 14 in every 10,000 in Q3 2026, against 13 a year earlier.
Where shipping container applications concentrate
By region
Shipping container applications in every 10,000 planning applications, 2023 to 2025
Councils with the most
Applications since 2016
-
Cornwall
South West · 12 in every 10,000 90 -
North Yorkshire
Yorkshire and Humber · 11 in every 10,000 75 -
Somerset
South West · 11 in every 10,000 63 -
Wiltshire
South West · 11 in every 10,000 61 -
Sheffield
Yorkshire and Humber · 18 in every 10,000 52 -
Dorset
South West · 9.9 in every 10,000 48 -
Northumberland
North East · 18 in every 10,000 48 -
East Riding of Yorkshire
Yorkshire and Humber · 16 in every 10,000 47 -
Leeds
Yorkshire and Humber · 8.0 in every 10,000 47 -
Durham
North East · 17 in every 10,000 46
Latest shipping container applications
- Wood Street Studios Barrett Road, Walthamstow, London Part retrospective application for retention of one shipping container, two small containers and covered seating deck; re-roofing of the covered seating deck and kitchen and service area; installation of timber cladding to the retained shipping container; and construction of three toilet pods, together with installation of additional planters.
- 2 Warren Road, London Removal of existing rear shipping container and erection of single storey outbuilding in rear garden to dwellinghouse.
- Sinah Warren Holiday Village, Ferry Road, Hayling Island Retention of gated vehicular access. Create 1m high landscaped bund and related 0.5m deep swale. Construct 3 detached, single storey buildings (Commercial stables with associated hay barn and open sided general store). Demolish existing single storey detached building and construct larger, detached, single storey security gatehouse. Form enclosed, permeable hardstanding, open storage area with 20 No. shipping containers positioned within, providing domestic/boat/campervan/touring caravan/trailer storage facility. Position 10 other shipping containers north of open-sided store with associated skip bays, for use by local builders
- 47 Gracemount House Drive Gracemount Edinburgh Refurbishment of vacant building shell of a former stables, with new roofs, windows and doors. New shelter in the courtyard. Relocate shipping container from one side of the garden to courtyard and full fit out for use as community building.
- Kosher Savers, Knoll Street, Salford Part single-storey, part two-storey front and side extensions, including external alterations, partial demolition, and the removal of outbuildings, portable cabins, and shipping containers.
- Thameside Centre Wyatt Road Staines-upon-Thames Siting of a storage container (a standard 20ft shipping container 6.1m long by 2.4m width by 2.6m high) on existing hardstanding. This will be used for storage of equipment and materials ancillary to the care of disabled adults attending the Thameside Day Centre.
Questions
How many shipping container planning applications are there in the UK?
Councils have received 4,600 since January 2016, 547 of them in the 12 months to September 2026. Their share of all applications is the highest since 2016.
Which councils get the most shipping container applications?
Cornwall, North Yorkshire and Somerset have received the most since 2016.
Are these all container homes?
No. These figures count containers used as stores, site cabins and workspaces as well as homes: every planning proposal that names a shipping container.
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
Whether siting a container needs planning permission is judged site by site, on its size, permanence and attachment to the land. These figures include containers used as stores and workspaces as well as homes.
Methodology
- What is counted: planning applications to UK councils whose description names shipping containers 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 shipping container 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 shipping container 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
- Whether placing a structure on land is development depends on its size, permanence, movability and attachment to the land, judged case by case. gov.uk