Planning applications for housing schemes are taking more than three times longer to determine than they did in 2010, according to new research from The Strategic Land Group (SLG) and Searchland.
Developers now face an average wait of 439 days for a decision on outline applications.
The SLG says the findings raise serious questions about the ability of the planning system to support the government’s housing ambitions, despite more than a decade of reforms intended to improve efficiency.
The report, ‘The Planning Slowdown’, analysed around 132,000 residential planning applications for schemes of 10 homes or more submitted in England between 2010 and 2025.
The research found that the median time taken for councils to determine a major housing application increased from 107 days in 2010 to 349 days in 2025, an increase of more than 225%. The slowdown was most pronounced for outline planning applications, which now take a median of 439 days to determine, compared with 118 days in 2010.
The research also found that planning applications for smaller housing schemes have experienced some of the sharpest increases in determination times. Applications for developments of between 10 and 50 homes now take more than three times longer to determine than they did in 2010, highlighting that delays are not confined to large strategic sites.
Meanwhile, the analysis revealed a growing divide between applications determined by planning officers and those referred to planning committees. In 2010, committee decisions took just 38 days longer than delegated applications. By 2025, that gap had widened to 278 days, with committee-determined schemes taking a median of 517 days to secure a decision.
The report also identified a notable shift in the types of applications coming forward. Over the last decade, the proportion of outline applications has fallen while reserved matters applications have increased, which may partly explain some of the modest improvement in determination periods recorded during the past year.
The findings lend support to proposals aimed at increasing the number of planning decisions made under delegated powers, reducing the need for applications to be considered by committee. However, SLG cautions that the planning system remains significantly slower than it was in 2010 and that recent improvements should not distract from the scale of the challenge facing policymakers.
Paul Smith, managing director of The Strategic Land Group, said: “One of the most striking findings is that the slowdown is affecting every part of the system – it’s not just major strategic developments taking longer, even relatively modest housing schemes are facing significantly longer determination periods than they were a decade ago.”
“Resourcing is undoubtedly a problem, but the planning system receives more funding now than it did 15 years ago and yet is processing fewer applications. That’s because the fundamental problem is the increasing complexity of the system, with applicants being asked to submit more information to demonstrate compliance with a growing list of policy and regulatory requirements.”
“The growing gap between delegated and committee decisions is equally revealing. It suggests that the challenge isn’t simply one of planning department resources, important though that is. The political processes surrounding decision-making are increasingly contributing to delay. The Government’s reforms to delegation need to be accompanied by greater certainty, stability and investment across the planning system if we are serious about increasing housing delivery.”
“There is a widespread perception that planning is slow, but until now there has been very little data showing just how much performance has deteriorated. Successive governments have introduced reforms aimed at speeding up the process, yet the evidence suggests the opposite has happened. Applications that were taking around 15 weeks to determine in 2010 are now taking close to a year.”
“If the government is serious about increasing housing delivery, improving decision-making times by removing the grit from the system must be a priority. The planning system cannot support the homes the country needs if applications continue to spend months – or years in many cases – awaiting determination.”
Hugh Gibbs, co-founder of Searchland, said: “We need a step-change in how our industry talks about planning. It’s not enough to say the system is slow, we need to understand exactly where delays are occurring, how they’ve changed over time and what that means for housing delivery.”
“One of the challenges facing the sector is that planning is often discussed through anecdotes and individual experiences. What this research does is bring robust evidence to that conversation, using a large-scale dataset to reveal long-term trends, turning complex planning data into clear, actionable insights. The findings quantify what many developers and planning professionals have known for years. For an industry under pressure to tackle the housing crisis, better data is essential.”
While the report identifies some signs of improvement over the past year, the SLG warns that more fundamental reform will be needed to reverse a long-term decline in performance. Greater policy stability, increased resources for planning officers and a larger proportion of decisions being made under delegated powers could all play a key role in improving decision-making times.
