The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has said that rural businesses in England are waiting years, and even decades to get planning permission, according to freedom of information (FOI) requests.
The CLA said it approached 38 councils in England where over half the population lives in rural areas, it found that:
- Eight councils exceeded the government’s target time to issue decisions in 2023, with delays of weeks to years;
- Fourteen councils have applications from before 2020, with some dating back to 2007;
- Several councils approved less than 50% of projects.
The association said 18 councils rejected one in four major housing projects (10 or more homes), in turn putting government housing targets under threat.
President of the CLA, Victoria Vyvyan, said: “Our planning system is in crisis and it’s stagnating growth in the countryside.
“The productivity of rural areas lags 14% and that is in no small part due to planning delays and refusals. Yet the latest revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework offer little to fix this.
“Labour is scrambling to find economic growth, but the opportunity is right here. Let’s clear the backlogs and create a planning system that powers rural growth,” Vyvyan said.
Councils are legally required to make decisions on minor planning applications within 56 days and major developments within 91 days, but the CLA said nearly half of the 18 councils that shared their average response times failed to meet these targets in 2023.
The CLA is calling on the government to alleviate delays by expanding permitted development rights to make it easier for businesses to diversify.
It is also campaigning for the introduction of ‘permission in principle’ for rural economic development.
The CLA said this would reduce the upfront application costs and therefore mitigate the financial impact of delayed or rejected applications.
The group has called on the government to invest £25m to hire an extra planning officer for every local authority to help prevent backlogs.
The CLA said investment is needed to speed up decisions and ensure councils can deliver overdue reforms to the planning system.
It is also campaigning for better training of local authorities on rural issues to ensure the planning system delivers for the countryside and its needs.
The CLA stated that some councils are rejecting nearly half of all applications. Central Bedfordshire approved just 50% of projects between August 2023 and August 2024, while West Lindsey District Council approved 61%.
Angus Forrest, a landowner in Essex said: “Rural communities need affordable homes but delivering them remains a challenge.
“If the government wants to ‘get Britain building,’ it must reform the planning system to make it easier for landowners to build a small number of quality homes in a large number of villages.”
