Research Reveals the Hardest & Easiest Places to Get Planning Permission in the UK

Getting planning permission in the UK is not always the easiest task, and it can be extremely frustrating to wait for approval before renovating your home. But, did you know that where you live can also have an impact on whether you get approved or not?

Leader Floors looked at eight years of planning application data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to calculate the percentage of applications that were accepted and rejected.

From this data, The City of London was revealed to be the best place to live for home renovators as it’s the easiest area to win home planning permission, while Maldon is the hardest. In London, a huge 98.7% of planning permission requests were granted, while 40.4% of applications were denied in Maldon, across an eight-year period.

The Top 5 Easiest Places to Get Planning Permission

Numerous factors affect how likely an application will be approved, as different areas have specific building regulations, planning constraints and development targets. Residents in the City of London are the most likely to have their application granted, with a 98.7% approval rate. This is great news for residents looking to make small improvements to their homes. The Borough of Copeland in western Cumbria was a close second, with 96.4% of planning permission requests approved over eight years. This was followed by the Isles of Scilly (95.6%), off the beautiful Cornwall coast, Richmondshire in North Yorkshire (95.5%) and Wigan in the Greater Manchester area (95.4%).