MHCLG’s latest figures say 91% of planning applications were decided on time in the last quarter of 2024. Housing columnist Chris Worrall explains why that figure hides the real story
Chris Worrall is a housing columnist for LFF. He is on the Executive Committee of the Labour Housing Group, Co-Host of the Priced Out Podcast, and Chair of the Local Government and Housing Member Policy Group of the Fabian Society.
By any reasonable measure, the English planning system is in crisis. And yet, if you believed the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) latest quarterly statistics, you’d think everything was ticking along nicely.
The headline claim? A reassuring-sounding 91% of major planning applications were “decided on time” in the last quarter of 2024.
But that figure is a complete fudge.
Statistical deception
Dig a little deeper and you discover that only 19% of those applications were actually decided within the statutory 13-week deadline.
The remaining 72% were “within time” only because councils negotiated extended deadlines with applicants — effectively moving the goalposts to suit their overloaded, allegedly under-resourced planning departments.
Departments that will eventually be met with some relief following Labour’s introduction of 300 new planning officers across the country. But let’s call this what it is: bureaucratic sleight of hand, masking systemic failure with tick-box compliance.
If councils and central government departments think the public is buying that 91% as a success story, they’re sorely mistaken.
Because out here in the real world, the impact of this inertia is painfully visible. We are in the midst of a housing crisis where young people can’t afford to live in the towns they grew up in, families are stuck on endless housing waiting lists, and renters are forced into bidding wars over mouldy flats.
Not to mention migrant hotels operating at full occupancy, up 8,000 in number despite Labour’s best intention to reduce government spending in this regard opting to return to using long-standing dispersed accommodation “as soon as is practicable“.
Worse still, many local authorities are operating without up-to-date Local Plans.
According to Planning Resource’s data dashboard only a third of councils currently have an up-to-date plan in place. Some of these plans are decades out of date, meaning developers, residents and planners are left working with outdated policies that bear little relation to the realities of housing need today.
Speed when it suits
And yet — when it suits them — councils can move at lightning speed.
Smith highlighted the remarkable burst of activity seen at the end of 2024: in the last quarter alone, 14 local plans were submitted to the Planning Inspectorate, more than any quarter since early 2019.
In total, 28 were submitted across the year — more than double the number in 2023. The highest
level in more than five years.
Why the sudden surge? Because local authorities he argues were racing to get their plans in before new housing targets took effect.
Fast-tracking plans to avoid stricter targets
Let that sink in. Councils that couldn’t be bothered to update plans for years suddenly found the time, staff and consultants to push them through — not to meet local housing need, but to duck responsibility for delivering more homes.
Yes, Labour’s new housing targets, which it is already on track to miss, took effect immediately from their introduction on the 30 July 2024.
But it does not always mean such policies instantly carry full legal or material planning weight. There is often a lag in how local authorities interpret and apply the new policy.
And how planning inspectorates assess local plans already in motion before new targets are announced.
This is hypocrisy at its finest. Many of these local plans currently being submitted were drafted or consulted on before new targets came into force.
Prior to being rushed for submission in mid-2024, many of which in order to avoid being judged against stricter targets.
This is because there is often a ‘transitional grace period’ where older plans or drafts are still assessed under the previous framework – especially if they’ve been already consulted on or submitted.
It is where local authorities hope that inspectors might take what one could call a ‘pragmatic view’, depending on which way you look at it.
In short, these local authorities are gaming the system by fast-tracking under old assumptions – but from a legal perspective those plans may still be valid if they’re submitted before new guidance is enforced in examinations.
The fact of the matter is that plans submitted before 12th March 2025 can have their plans examined under the previous NPPF guidelines.
However, if these plans propose housing targets of less than 80% of the standard local housing need, they are expected to begin work on a new plan under the updated system to address any shortfall, as explained by Zack Simons here.
It exposes a deeply cynical approach to planning: councils will act swiftly when it’s politically advantageous, or when it helps them avoid scrutiny.
But when it comes to approving new homes — especially ones that might upset vocal NIMBY
constituents — the gears grind to a halt.
Planning consultants benefitting from a dysfunctional system
This foot-dragging is compounded by the rise of the planning consultant industrial complex — a growing network of private consulting firms feeding off the dysfunction of the public system.
Councils, stripped of in-house expertise, now spend millions outsourcing tasks they once handled themselves.
Developers, meanwhile, must also shell out for consultants, just to navigate the ever-shifting web of local policy, design codes, heritage assessments, biodiversity net gain calculations, and the latest fashionable planning buzzwords.
Planning barristers? No doubt having a field day in consulting and advising on how and where the proposed changes may or may not be advantageous. Depending on whether you want to block or propose development.
The result is a bloated, adversarial, and expensive process that delivers too few homes, too slowly, in the wrong places. And when the numbers look especially bad — as they did this quarter — statistics can be framed in a way that makes the situation look better than it is in reality.
But government statistics need to be presented in a way that accurately reflects the reality.
Introducing a YIMBY stick
It is time to stop tolerating decades-old local plans and councils that deliberately stall decisions to placate a vocal minority.
That means publishing not just the proportion of applications “decided within agreed timescales”, but
rather assessing the average length of these timescales, which were likely extended reluctantly.
It means not just naming and shaming councils that are failing to update their plans, but to introduce a meaningful YIMBY stick like the Builder’s Remedy.
One that would emulate successful policies seen implemented in California. Where areas that do not put plans in place on time and based on updated housing targets, feel the wrath of Housing Accountability Act that prevents non-compliant jurisdictions from rejecting any housing project that meets affordability requirements.
Moving towards meaningful statistics
The current system, in which applications are delayed for months, sometimes years, while civil service departments cite hitting meaningless 91% “on time” stats, needs to change.
While local plan submissions must be welcomed, more needs to be done to continue to increase the number of which are submitted for examination.
We need to ensure local authorities do not shy away from submitting Local Plans on new housing targets. Only can we then have any hope major applications will be approved within statutory timeframes. We need this, without doubt, alongside meaningful statistics that transparently measure performance, in order to avoid feet-draggers feigning that they are delivering major applications on-time.
The numbers don’t lie. But the way they’re spun? That’s another matter entirely. And one the MHCLG needs to address quickly.
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