Skip to content

Planning data

How long planning decisions take in Buckinghamshire

What the public record actually shows for Buckinghamshire. Every figure below is measured or published, with its sample and its date. Nothing here is an estimate, and none of it predicts what a particular application will do.

How long decisions took

Median weeks from validation to decision, counted from the council’s own register. A median means half of decisions took longer, so it is a middle, not a target.

Application typeMedianDecisions counted
Major schemes17 weeks225
All other applications2.2 weeks54

Measured over applications decided 01/07/2024 to 13/07/2026.

Housing Delivery Test

Buckinghamshire measured 94% in the 2025 Housing Delivery Test — consequence: Action plan.

MHCLG records 7,763 homes delivered against a three-year requirement of 8,274.

Published by MHCLG on 2026-08-17. This is the most recent measurement published, not a current-year figure, and it is the number that determines whether the presumption in favour of sustainable development is engaged.

Planning appeal success rate in Buckinghamshire

Planning appeals decided by the Planning Inspectorate for Buckinghamshire, from 01/01/2021 to 31/07/2026. This is what happened to appeals that were decided; it does not predict what would happen to yours.

32%
allowed in full — 271 of 853 decided
1%
allowed in part — 6 split decisions
68%
dismissed — 576

That is every planning appeal decided for Buckinghamshire in the period, not a sample. Only refused applications get appealed, so it describes a self-selected minority of decisions, and a householder extension sits inside the same figure as a 200-home scheme. It is a record of what happened, not a guide to what would happen to a particular proposal.

A further 12 appeals were withdrawn, turned away or left unrecorded in this period. Those are excluded from the figures above rather than counted as dismissals.

Planning appeals only. Enforcement, advertisement, rights of way and common land cases are decided on different tests and are not counted here.

What this page is not

It does not tell you what constrains a particular site in Buckinghamshire. Designations sit on land, not on councils. For that, run a free check on the site itself: it names every designation on or beside the boundary, states when each dataset was last collected, and says plainly where a record is not published rather than showing you a clear result.

Check a site in Buckinghamshire — free

Appeal outcomes from the Planning Inspectorate appeals database, England only, Open Government Licence v3.0, release of 2026-08-31. Decision speed measured from council registers by PF & Co. Housing Delivery Test © MHCLG, Open Government Licence v3.0. All 274 authorities.