UK planning decision times vary nearly three-fold at council level: from 6.6 weeks average in Redbridge to 19.1 weeks in the City of London, against a national average of 10.1 weeks, according to LeadLinka Research tracking more than 250 UK local planning authorities. The 10.1-week national figure is the average of a very wide range, not a reliable guide to any specific authority. The council in the decision seat determines both how long you wait and whether you should plan for seven weeks or five months.
Every UK planning authority operates under the same statutory eight-week target for minor applications and thirteen weeks for major ones. Yet the actual average decision time across councils tracked by LeadLinka Research ranges from 6.6 weeks to 19.1 weeks, a near three-fold spread from the fastest to the slowest. The national average of 10.1 weeks sits in the middle of that range, but the range itself is what matters for any specific project.
An applicant in Redbridge can expect a decision in about six weeks and a half. An applicant with an equivalent application in the City of London can expect to wait nearly five months. Both are applying under the same legal framework, with the same statutory target applying. The three-fold difference is not a matter of policy, it is a matter of which authority is in the decision seat.
| Council | Avg decision time |
|---|---|
| Redbridge | 6.6 weeks |
| Richmond upon Thames | 7.0 weeks |
| Enfield | 7.7 weeks |
| Brent | 9.2 weeks |
| National (average) | 10.1 weeks |
| Westminster | 11.8 weeks |
| Tower Hamlets | 13.4 weeks |
| Lambeth | 15.7 weeks |
| Hammersmith & Fulham | 16.1 weeks |
| City of London | 19.1 weeks |
The fastest deciders in Q2 2026 were Redbridge (6.6 weeks), Richmond upon Thames (7.0), Enfield (7.7), Barking and Dagenham (7.9) and Barnet (8.0), with Kensington and Chelsea (8.6) and Brent (9.2) also below the national average, according to LeadLinka Research. All are London boroughs.
The speed of the fastest councils is material for procurement planning. A six-and-a-half-week average decision time means that for most schemes, a procurement window opens within two months of submission. That compresses the timeline between application and contractor or supplier engagement significantly compared with the national average, let alone the slowest authorities.
At the other end, the City of London averaged 19.1 weeks, followed by Hammersmith and Fulham (16.1), Lambeth (15.7), Tower Hamlets (13.4), Rugby (13.0), Haringey (12.2), Islington (12.0) and Westminster (11.8), according to LeadLinka Research.
Several of the slowest are dense, high-volume central London authorities handling complex mixed-use casework, which tends to lengthen determination. Rugby, in Warwickshire, is the main outlier: the only non-London council among the slowest in the dataset, and the exception that demonstrates the pattern is not purely a London phenomenon.
London boroughs dominate both ends of the range. That is not a paradox: London contains both the fastest and the slowest planning authorities in the country, because it has the highest concentration of large, complex applications alongside some of the highest-volume but more routine caseloads. "A London council" as a category tells an applicant very little about likely speed; the specific authority matters entirely.
The finding from LeadLinka Research's speed and approval analysis that is most useful in conjunction with this data: decision speed and approval rate are statistically independent dimensions. A fast council is not necessarily a permissive one.
Redbridge illustrates this directly. It is the fastest council in the dataset (6.6 weeks) yet one of the most restrictive by approval rate (53.3%). The City of London is the slowest (19.1 weeks) yet one of the most permissive (93.8%). A developer optimising purely on speed would select Redbridge and face some of the worst approval odds in the data. A developer optimising purely on approval likelihood would select the City of London and accept a nearly five-month timeline.
The practical implication, as set out in the combined analysis, is that the two dimensions need to be read together. Enfield is the clearest example of a council that performs well on both: 7.7 weeks and 84.1% approval rate, both above the national benchmarks.
For M&E contractors and electrical manufacturers, planning decision timing is the leading indicator of when a procurement window opens. A scheme that is approved determines that a window will open; the decision time determines when. For high-volume pipelines where throughput depends on the rate at which schemes clear planning, the council-level speed distribution matters more than the national average.
A pipeline concentrated in fast-deciding councils opens procurement windows systematically earlier than one concentrated in slow ones. At a three-fold spread between the fastest and slowest authorities, the difference in pipeline velocity between geographies is not marginal: it represents the difference between a six-week and a nineteen-week lead time on every application in that geography. Combined with the approval rate analysis, the full picture of a given authority, how long it takes and how likely it is to approve, is what drives useful procurement intelligence.
Decision time is the average number of weeks from an application's validation date to its decision date, over the most recent 12 months of decided applications. Validation date is the date the local planning authority formally validated the application; decision date is the date the authority recorded a decision. Council-level figures are limited to authorities with at least 50 decided applications to avoid small-sample distortion. One authority is excluded due to a known duplicate-record data-quality issue. Decision time is reported independently of approval rate; the two are separate measures and are statistically independent at council level. Full methodology: leadlinka.co.uk/methodology.
Source: LeadLinka Research, "How Long Planning Really Takes: Decision Times by Council", leadlinka.co.uk/insights/uk-planning-decision-times-by-council-2026, published 22 June 2026, updated 25 June 2026. Methodology and definitions: leadlinka.co.uk/methodology.
Source: LeadLinka planning applications database · more than 250 UK local planning authorities · Decision times over the most recent 12 months · ← All Insights