of UK planning decisions end in approval — but the refusal rate ranges from 1% to 37% depending on the council.
We analysed 273,000 decided applications (approved or refused) over the last 12 months, across UK councils with complete decision data. The headline is reassuring for applicants: nationally, roughly 89% are approved and 11% refused. But that average is close to meaningless on its own — because where you apply changes everything.
The hardest councils to get planning permission
These authorities refuse the highest share of applications:
| Council | Refusal rate |
|---|---|
| Stafford | 37.0% |
| Buckinghamshire | 31.5% |
| Elmbridge | 28.6% |
| Staffordshire Moorlands | 27.1% |
| Epping Forest | 27.0% |
| Mole Valley | 26.1% |
| Kingston upon Thames | 25.6% |
| Brent | 21.8% |
| Redbridge | 21.9% |
| Barnet | 21.1% |
The most lenient councils
At the other extreme, these authorities refuse barely anything:
| Council | Refusal rate |
|---|---|
| Stirling | 1.2% |
| Copeland | 1.8% |
| Cardiff | 2.5% |
| South Ayrshire | 2.5% |
| North Lanarkshire | 2.6% |
| Monmouthshire | 2.6% |
| Fareham | 2.6% |
The real story: planning is a geographic lottery
The pattern is stark. Scotland and Wales approve almost everything — Stirling, South Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Cardiff and Monmouthshire all sit at 1–3% refusal. The toughest councils cluster in the South East and the West Midlands — Elmbridge, Epping Forest, Mole Valley, Kingston, plus Stafford and Buckinghamshire — where between a quarter and a third of applications are turned down.
Put bluntly: a scheme that's a near-certainty in Stirling has roughly a one-in-three chance of refusal in Stafford. The biggest variable in whether you get permission often isn't the proposal — it's the postcode.
For developers and investors, a council's refusal rate is planning risk — and it's the kind of risk you want to price into a site before you bid, not discover after exchange.
Why this is hard to see — and why it matters
Refusal data is genuinely difficult to capture cleanly: every UK council publishes decisions on its own portal and words "refused" dozens of different ways. Most planning tools surface approvals and quietly miss refusals — which is exactly why the refusal signal is so valuable to the people who can see it. It tells you which councils are strict, which sites have already been knocked back, and where motivated owners are sitting on hard-to-develop assets. See our guide on what refusal data tells property investors.
Methodology: PlanWire aggregates live planning data from every UK planning authority. Decision outcomes are classified from each council's published decision records; this report covers authorities with complete, current decision data over the trailing 12 months, and excludes withdrawals and undetermined outcomes from refusal rates.