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The same work, judged differently
How often each council approves each kind of work. The national figure for an extension is 83.3%, but that average conceals what actually decides your application: which council is reading it.
| Council | Decided | Approved | |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of London | 68 | 100% | |
| Hammersmith & Fulham | 157 | 91.7% | |
| Hounslow | 363 | 91.7% | |
| Southwark | 690 | 91% | |
| Camden | 601 | 89.9% | |
| Haringey | 1,369 | 89.8% | |
| Merton | 524 | 89.7% | |
| Wandsworth | 263 | 89% | |
| Sutton | 237 | 88.6% | |
| Westminster | 1,144 | 88% | |
| Hillingdon | 2,913 | 87.3% | |
| Kensington & Chelsea | 782 | 86.7% | |
| Ealing | 472 | 86.2% | |
| Richmond | 1,336 | 86% | |
| Redbridge | 4,585 | 85.7% | |
| Croydon | 1,485 | 85.1% | |
| Enfield | 2,433 | 84.6% | |
| Bromley | 2,622 | 83.8% | |
| Lambeth | 1,065 | 83.8% | |
| Harrow | 1,057 | 82.8% | |
| Lewisham | 515 | 82.7% | |
| Barnet | 746 | 82.3% | |
| Hackney | 533 | 82% | |
| Brent | 2,158 | 81.9% | |
| Waltham Forest | 256 | 81.2% | |
| Newham | 753 | 81.1% | |
| Bexley | 496 | 79.6% | |
| Kingston | 276 | 78.6% | |
| Tower Hamlets | 379 | 77.8% | |
| Islington | 2,061 | 76.5% | |
| Greenwich | 1,480 | 75.3% | |
| Barking & Dagenham | 118 | 61.9% | |
| Havering | 819 | 44.4% |
Before reading too much into a low number
A council with a lower approval rate is not necessarily harder to deal with. Authorities differ in how much they negotiate before a decision, whether they encourage withdrawal of an application heading for refusal, and how they record it when they do — and an authority that talks applicants out of doomed schemes will look stricter than one that simply refuses them.
Rates are of decided applications only. Councils with fewer than 40 decided applications for a kind of work are not shown for it. Coverage follows the planning data — who publishes what.