The Northern Ireland Planning Statistics: 2024/25 Annual Statistical Bulletin, has been published today
Topics:
Date published:
Planning statistics for the period April 2024 – March 2025 are now available. These data provide an overall view of planning activity.
Alongside this there is a summary of council performance across the three statutory targets, for major development applications, local development applications and enforcement as laid out in the Local Government (Performance Indicators and Standards) Order (Northern Ireland) 2015, along with other statistics of interest such as application approval rates.
The publication is available on the Department for Infrastructure website.
Key points:
The key points from the Northern Ireland Planning Statistics: 2024/25 Annual Statistical Bulletin are:
- There were 9,716 planning applications received during 2024/25; a 3% decrease from the previous year. This comprised of 9,554 local, 161 major and one regionally significant application.
- A total of 9,284 planning applications were decided during 2024/25; a decrease of 5% from the previous year. Decisions were issued on 9,112 local and 172 major applications during 2024/25.
- The average processing time for local applications brought to a decision or withdrawal during 2024/25 was 19.0 weeks across all councils. This exceeds the 15 week target and represents a decrease of 1.8 weeks from the previous year. Three of the 11 councils met the 15 week target in 2024/25.
- The average processing time for major applications brought to a decision or withdrawal during 2024/25 was 39.6 weeks across all councils; this is the lowest annual processing time since the transfer of planning powers. While exceeding the 30 week target, this represents a decrease of 6.9 weeks compared with the previous year. Five of the 11 councils met the 30 week target in 2024/25.
- Across councils 70.7% of enforcement cases were concluded within 39 weeks during 2024/25, meeting the 70% target. This represents a decrease from the rate recorded in 2023/24 (76.4%). Individually, six of the 11 councils met the 70% target in 2024/25; seven councils met the target in the previous year.
Notes to editors:
- This is the latest in a regular series of statistical bulletins related to Development Management (Planning) functions. The Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 sets out the legislative framework for development management and provides that, from 1 April 2015, councils now largely have responsibility for this planning function. This is the tenth annual statistical bulletin to report on activity and performance since the transfer of planning functions occurred. This report focuses primarily on performance in 2024/25 (1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025).
- A new classification hierarchy for planning applications came into effect on 1 April 2014 in advance of the transfer of planning functions to local government from 1 April 2015. The development categories are – major and local development applications, processed primarily by councils, and regionally significant development applications, processed within the Department for Infrastructure. Note that the ‘major development’ category is based on a completely different definition to the previous ‘major’ category so figures relating to this category should not be compared with those from earlier bulletins (i.e. pre-2014/15).
- The three statutory targets, for major development applications, local development applications and enforcement as laid out in the Local Government (Performance Indicators and Standards) Order (Northern Ireland) 2015 are reported on within this report. These are processing of local development decisions within an average of 15 weeks; processing of major development decisions within an average of 30 weeks and bringing 70% of enforcements to conclusion within 39 weeks.
- The final records of all applications from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 were transferred in April 2025 from live databases and inspected for consistency in coding before figures were prepared for publication.
Quarterly data are provided in more detailed accompanying data tables together with comparable data from the previous financial year.
Data for 2024/25 are now finalised and will not be subject to further scheduled revision.
- Following an independent assessment by the UK Statistics Authority, the NI Planning Statistics report received accreditation in December 2020, demonstrating that it meets the highest standards of trustworthiness, quality and public value.
- Electronic copies of the bulletin, associated data tables and summary infographic are available free of charge from the Department for Infrastructure website.
- These statistics are accredited official statistics. Accredited Official Statistics are official statistics that have been independently reviewed by Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) and confirmed to comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
- For more information relating to this publication, including additional analysis, breakdowns of data, or alternative formats please contact: Analysis, Statistics and Research Branch, 1st Floor, James House, Gasworks Site, 2-4 Cromac Avenue, Belfast, BT7 2JA. Telephone: (028) 9054 0390 (Text relay prefix 18001). E-mail: asrb@nisra.gov.uk. Website: DfI Statistics and Research.
ASRB advise customers to make contact through email or by telephone.
- All media queries should be directed to the Department for Infrastructure Press Office at: press.office@infrastructure-ni.gov.uk.
- The Executive Information Service operates an out of hours service for media enquiries only between 1800hrs and 0800hrs Monday to Friday and at weekends and public holidays. The duty press officer can be contacted on 028 9037 8110.