Performance Update 19 August

The latest official monthly statistics details our performance on Planning Appeals for the 12 month period to the end of July 2021 for cases in England.

The Planning Inspectorate delivers an appeals, examinations and applications service in England and Wales. We support a fair planning system through deciding planning, enforcement and specialist casework appeals; helping communities shape where they live by examining local plans; and help meet future infrastructure needs by reviewing national infrastructure applications.

Our performance statistics currently only cover our appeals casework. In summary:

• we made 18,123 appeal decisions in the last 12 months, an average of over 1500 per month
• the mean average time to make an appeal decision across all types of casework in the last 12 months was 27 weeks
• at the end of July 2021, we had 11,982 open cases. This is an increase of 173 (1.5%), from the previous month

How long appeals take

• a householder appeal proceeding by written representations in July 21 was taking 20 weeks to decide on (mean) average
• for s78 planning appeals, the (mean) average for written representations was 26 weeks. There were 623 decisions in July 21
• planning appeals progressing by hearing (virtual or physical) have a (mean) average decision time of 525 weeks comparable to performance over the past year. Numbers of hearings and decisions are returning to pre-pandemic levels. There were 67 hearing decisions in July 21
• the mean average time to make a decision, across all cases in the last 12 months (Aug 20 to Jul 21), was 27 weeks. The median time is 23 weeks
• the median time to decide a case decreased by 0.6 weeks between June and July 21, with the median being 21.4 weeks