Swimming pool planning trends
Pool applications have fallen since 2021, yet the swimming pool planning index stands at 139: 1.4 times the 2016 share of planning applications.
Swimming pool applications since 2016
Swimming pool applications in every 10,000 planning applications, over the 12 months to each month
How this is measuredThe 2021 peak and the decline since
Councils received 2,330 swimming pool applications in 2021, against 1,263 in 2019. The count has fallen every year since, to 1,237 in 2025. The 12 months to September 2026 brought 1,232, a share 12% lower than three years earlier.
Led by the South East
From 2023 to 2025 the South East received 61 swimming pool applications in every 10,000, about twice the UK figure of 29. The East of England followed on 44. Scotland was lowest, on 5.5. South Downs National Park has received the most since 2016, 436.
Q3 2026 against a year earlier
Councils received 295 swimming pool applications in Q3 2026: 29 in every 10,000 applications, against 29 in Q3 2025, about the same share as a year earlier.
Swimming pool applications each quarter
295 in Q3 2026, against 315 a year earlier.
Out of every 10,000 applications
As a share of every application: 29 in every 10,000 in Q3 2026, against 29 a year earlier.
Where swimming pool applications concentrate
By region
Swimming pool applications in every 10,000 planning applications, 2023 to 2025
Councils with the most
Applications since 2016
-
South Downs National Park
South East · 137 in every 10,000 436 -
Wiltshire
South West · 58 in every 10,000 326 -
Waverley
South East · 140 in every 10,000 309 -
Cornwall
South West · 38 in every 10,000 297 -
Somerset
South West · 45 in every 10,000 257 -
Elmbridge
South East · 98 in every 10,000 240 -
Wealden
South East · 98 in every 10,000 240 -
Sevenoaks
South East · 112 in every 10,000 229 -
Guildford
South East · 96 in every 10,000 226 -
Cotswold
South West · 109 in every 10,000 218
Latest swimming pool applications
- 35 Buckingham Avenue London Erection of a rear outbuilding for use as gym, office, changing room and plant room, new swimming pool and shed for bike storage
- East Court Annexe Brockenhurst Road, Ramsgate, Kent 1No Ailanthus altissima (Tree of Heaven) (T1) - Removal of the lowest lateral limb extending across the boundary towards the swimming pool, crown reduce the remaining sections extending over the boundary by approximately 3m
- Pippins Wrights Green Little Hallingbury Essex Proposed outdoor swimming pool and associated pool plant room and air-source/fan-coil equipment within the residential curtilage of the dwelling.
- Orchard House Church Lane Goodworth Clatford Andover Hampshire Application for a lawful development certificate for construction of swimming pool and associated pool plant equipment
- Upfold Farm High Pitfold Hindhead Installation of a swimming pool and erection of a single storey plant store with associated works.
- Surrenden House, Surrenden Road, Pluckley Proposed swimming pool and pool house
Questions
How many swimming pool planning applications are there in the UK?
Councils have received 15,880 since January 2016, 1,232 of them in the 12 months to September 2026. Their share peaked in the 12 months to December 2021.
Which councils get the most swimming pool applications?
South Downs National Park, Wiltshire and Waverley have received the most since 2016.
Are swimming pool applications rising or falling?
Falling on the count. Councils received 1,232 in the 12 months to September 2026, against 2,330 in 2021 and 1,281 in 2016. The swimming pool planning index stands at 139, above its 2016 share, because total applications have fallen faster.
Where are swimming pool applications most common?
The South East, with 61 in every 10,000 applications from 2023 to 2025. Of the councils with the most, Waverley has the highest share of its own applications since 2016, 140 in every 10,000, followed by South Downs National Park on 137.
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
Under national permitted development rules many garden pools in England need no application, so these figures lean towards pools on designated land or at listed buildings.
Methodology
- What is counted: planning applications to UK councils whose description names swimming pools 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 swimming pool 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 swimming pool 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
- Domestic swimming pools fall within Class E permitted development in England, restricted on article 2(3) designated land legislation.gov.uk
- Any outbuilding within the curtilage of a listed building requires planning permission planningportal.co.uk