A Local Planning Authority ‘Deep Dive’: Yorkshire and the Humber

The latest Planning Market Insight Report focuses on the Yorkshire and the Humber region as the region leading the recovery of planning applications nationally. When comparing the submission figures for 2019 against 2020, the region received the second highest percentage increase at 17%. This has continued to increase further when measuring the first half of 2021 vs 2020: 27,524 submissions have been received so far this year against 19,473 in the first six months of 2020.

The region comprises of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, North Yorkshire (excluding areas in Tees Valley of North East England), North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire with its largest settlements being Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Hull, and York.

As you may expect, these settlement areas are Local Authorities and it is the neighbouring West Yorkshire authorities of Leeds City Council and Bradford Metropolitan District Council that receive the highest number of application submissions as per the table below. Between them, they have received 7,731 applications in the first six months of this year which is 28% of the total across the region. This is a considerable increase when compared to 2020 figures, with a further 2,636 applications being received. Looking at the percentage increase, Leeds is up by 55% and Bradford 46% for this period.  

Across the region there have been high percentage increases by all authorities – Wakefield top the list at 62%, followed closely by Rotherham with 59%. At the lower end of the scale are the National Park authorities of Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, with 21% and 14% respectively.

This analysis is part of the Planning Portal Planning Market Insight Report. The Planning Market Insight Report is the earliest source of planning market data available, and each issue features key high-level statistics as well as deeper analysis of a specific sector or topic.

You can access the full report here: 

The above article was provided to us by the Planning Portal.