Market Insight Report December 2022

Online application numbers in England and Wales

Welcome to December’s issue of the Planning Portal Market Insight Report, where we report on the latest figures for applications submitted online via the Planning Portal.

There was a total of 43,870 applications submitted through the Planning Portal in December, bringing the total for 2022 to 633,766.

December’s figures continued the trend of being lower than December 2021’s application figures by 11.5%.

Last year as a whole was 12.5% lower than the previous years’ and settling back into a more normal pattern after a high application volume through the pandemic.

In fact, 2022 was 15% higher than 2019, which was before the spikes in applications through the pandemic.

The regional view

We saw the biggest reduction compared to December 2021 in Wales, which fell by 18% and in the East Midlands, which fell by 16%. The smallest dips were in London and Yorkshire and the Humber, both dropping by 9%.

When comparing 2021 with 2022, the biggest reduction was seen in the North West (-16%), Yorkshire and the Humber (-15%) and East Midlands (-14%). The smallest reduction was in the South West (-9%).

The map?depicted below shows the percentage change in applications per region in December 2022 compared with December 2021.??

Applications by type

Prior Approval: Development by Telecoms Operators

There were 399 of these application types submitted which is a 95% increase compared to 2021. There were unusually high numbers through Q4, that was due to the 5G rollout with all 4 UK Mobile Network Operators doing a huge amount of work on the 5G element that isn’t expected to change going into ’23. There has also been increased numbers of submissions due to sharing rural network applications which started in Q1 ’22 and have gone in throughout the year. We expect these have been ramping up as the year went on that will continue in ’23 too.

Full Planning applications?

There were 9,928 Full Planning applications during December, which is a fall of 9% when compared to December 2021.

In December we also saw a total of 407 Outline applications, which is a fall of 16% when compared with the same month last year.

Homeowner applications

There were 12,806 Householder applications submitted in December 2022, which is down 21% from the same month last year.

Figures for other home improvement project applications include 3,133 Lawful Development Certificates, which is a fall of 11% when compared with last year, and 993 Larger Home Prior Approval applications, which is down 22% when compared with the same month last year.

Planning fees processed for online applications?

In December, we processed a total of ￡27,420,450 in planning application fees on behalf of Local Authorities, taking the total for 2022 to ￡292,211,871.

December was 14% lower than the previous year, while application numbers for this month fell by 11.5%.

Average application fees rose in December as usual due to the change in type of applications, ie fewer small/householder applications and more higher value applications. The average planning fee per application was up by 7% at ￡461 compared to ￡433 in 2021. However, in November 22 it was at ￡434 compared to ￡625 in December 22.

Over the whole year of 2022, the total fees were down by 7% and applications were down by 12.5%.?

By Local Planning Authority

There are currently 381?Local Authorities that include districts and counties in England and Wales. In total only 18 (4.7%) received more or the same number of applications as in 2021. These were mostly counties, Development Corporations or other smaller authorities.

Increasingly Local Authorities’ preference is to receive all applications online as it means more efficient processing. This is particularly important with staffing resource challenges meaning that many LPAs are struggling to maintain timely decisions.

Top 20 authorities by volume.

The Planning Portal has access to online application data exclusively available at the point of submission to Local Planning Authorities. The insights this data provides allows you to gain an early insight of what’s being applied for throughout England and Wales. If you would like to access this data on a more granular level, please email [email protected].???

To access this data first, subscribe to our mailing list here.?