Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the Home Builders Federation, Laura Markus, scruitinises the impact of persistent planning delays on housing and infrastructure delivery across England, highlighting how under-resourced planning authorities, regulatory complexity, and excessive bureaucracy affect development timelines.
In England, statutory timescales for LPAs are 13 weeks for major developments (or 16 weeks if an Environmental Impact Assessment is required). However, as anyone with experience of the planning process knows, compliance with these deadlines is the exception rather than the rule. In practice, delays are commonplace, often caused by understaffing and under-resourcing within LPAs, increasing regulatory complexity, and the need for multiple agreements and consultations that add layers of bureaucracy.
Overall, just 20% of major decisions made in the year to March 2025 were decided within the 13 week statutory timescale. With over 10,000 decisions over the year, under 2,000 were decided within 13 weeks.
Some councils fare worse than others. Of the 309 councils for which the data is recorded, 23 determined zero applications within 13 weeks, and 200 decided a quarter or less within this timeframe. Just one local authority determined 100% of applications within 13 weeks in the last year. This council, Rotherham, perhaps unsurprisingly, only had one major decision to be determined in this time.
For developers, these delays have tangible consequences. The timescales for achieving a consent can now often be measured in years rather than weeks or even months. This inevitably ties up capital and delays the delivery of housing and infrastructure projects. At a time when England faces a chronic housing shortage, the planning process has become a bottleneck. Slow approvals not only reduce the overall supply of new homes but also increase costs for developers, deter smaller builders who lack the resources to withstand long waits, and ultimately push up prices for buyers and renters.
The vast majority of planning applications use Extension of Time agreements (EoT) – an agreement made between the applicant and authority to extend the approval period – with 75% of major decisions made within the 13-week or EoT period. However, the increasing use of these agreements masks underlying delays rather than resolving them. What was intended as a flexible tool to deal with exceptional cases has become routine practice, eroding transparency around true decision times and making it harder for applicants, investors, and communities to plan with certainty.
Government proposals have sought to address these issues. Recent reforms include plans to fast-track certain types of development, greater use of digital planning tools, and powers for the Planning Inspectorate to intervene where councils consistently miss deadlines. While these changes may help, they fall short of tackling the root causes. Without significant investment in LPA staffing and training, streamlined processes for handling agreements, and clearer national planning policies to reduce the scope for lengthy disputes, statutory targets will remain aspirational rather than achievable.
The stakes are high. An efficient planning process is critical to meeting housing demand, supporting economic growth, and delivering the infrastructure needed for thriving communities. Until the persistent resourcing and process challenges are addressed, delays will continue to undermine confidence in the process and restrict the pace at which England can build the homes it urgently needs.