Planning Statistics

MHCLG PS1/2 Survey

2025-04-01T09:59:51Z

Liverpool City Council’s Digital Planning team invite you to take part in an important survey on planning data, planning software and PS1 and PS2 returns. It is conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) and Open Digital Planning (ODP).

About this survey

We want to develop a better understanding of the systems Local Planning Authorities use to process and approve planning applications. We want to know how these systems support or hinder the production of high-quality, reliable planning data, including the reporting of PS1 and PS2 returns through DELTA.

Who should participate

We want to hear from as many Local Planning Authorities as possible. This survey is specifically designed for the person in your organisation responsible for making PS1 and PS2 returns. Their insights are crucial for us to understand the current processes and identify areas for improvement. Please can you forward this to the person in your planning team who completes the PS1/2 returns to DELTA/MHCLG

Why your input matters

By sharing your experience, you will help to improve the consistency and quality of planning data. Your responses will directly inform how we can enhance the process for PS1 and PS2 returns, benefiting both you and your Council.

Survey details

· Duration: 15-20 minutes

· Open until: 30 April 2025

· Contact us: If you have any questions or need assistance, please email us at digital.planning@liverpool.gov.uk. We are here to help!

How to take part in the survey

https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/planning-data/

What happens to your responses?

Your feedback will be used exclusively for this consultation, by the Digital Planning team in Liverpool City Council and MHCLG. All responses will be destroyed 12 months after the consultation closes.

We value your feedback

If you have further questions or comments, please let us know.

Thank you for your time and valuable input.

Best wishes

Digital Planning Team
Liverpool City Council

Self-Build Register - retention of entries

2022-01-07T13:09:51Z

Wondering if any other authorities have proposed removing entries from their self-build registers after a certain period of time? Other than where people have specifically requested to be removed from the register (ie. simply no longer wish to be on it or have since found a plot within the authority area or elsewhere), and thus are no longer regarded as live entries but are obviously still recorded for the base period they registered, we've not so far removed any other entries (other than data cleansing to deal with duplicate and updated entries evidently from the same people to avoid double-counting). However, we've been wondering if a 4 year timeframe for retention might be appropriate, particularly given GDPR considerations around not retaining people on Council records indefinitely and unnecessarily? Given the requirement to have permitted sufficient potential plot opportunities within 3 years of the end of the base period (and providing the LA has met that requirement), then is there much point in retaining people on the register for more than 4 years? Would it be reasonable to therefore routinely/automatically remove older entries (from more than 4 base periods ago) and require people to then re-register if they wish to continue to be on the register, which would help to ensure those who remain on the register do still indeed need to be on it in terms of having an interest in potentially finding a plot in the area, or should everyone be simply retained for the purposes of ongoing cumulative monitoring?

The Right to Build Task Force guidance note PG9 does provide some advice on removal of registrations, including in para.59 that "Work can be undertaken to remove the details of the individuals from the Registers (in accordance with GDPR), but the duties under the legislation are not removed even where the details of an individual on the Register are removed". PG13 also includes in their suggested summary tables a field for 'Date Left Register'. So can older entries reasonably be removed as live register entries while still retaining them for statistical/numerical purposes for the base period in which they registered? Indeed, there doesn't actually seem to be a legislative requirement to maintain a cumulative register from April 2016 (start of the first base period) onwards.

Any thoughts appreciated!

Gathering reasons for invalid applications

2021-06-21T10:04:00Z

Hello, this doesn't look a particularly busy forum so let's see if anyone is out there. I'm trying to get together some statistics around why planning applications are invalidated so I can compare my council with others - I’m after the last 6 or, preferably, 12 months of data, can anyone please help me obtaining that data from your council? If the data is a big Excel table I’m more than happy to trawl through it and make sense of it. And I’ll happily share my overall data back with anyone if it’s of interest. Thanks so much for any help you can give me! Dave.

If you'd prefer to email me directly my email is david.tidy@scambs.gov.uk

Affordable housing - Vacant Building Credit versus NPPF para 64

2020-12-04T09:27:00Z

We have a brownfield redevelopment proposal where the floorspace is such that Vacant Building Credit removes the requirement for any affordable housing. NPPF para 63 mentions the affordable housing requirement being "reduced by a proportionate amount".

But NPPF para 64 asks for 10% of the homes to be available for affordable home ownership. The paragraph lists four exemptions, none of which refer to VBC.

I can't see any guidance in PPG on this scenario.

Which takes precedence - NPPF 63 or 64? Viability usually trumps affordable housing, but VBC is not all about viability...

'Minor' housing development applications

2020-11-17T11:38:04Z

We (Swindon Borough Council) are granting planning permission on 90%+ of planning applications received. However, we have an outlier in our minor (1-9 dwellings) housing scheme applications. We have been granting permission on only 60% of these planning applications.

The majority of these schemes were refused on poor design. We have an adopted Design Guide. Our appeals stats are pretty good - most appeals on minor housing scheme applications are dismissed.

I was wondering if any other LPA has similar stats? I was also wondering whether any LPAs have made any changes to get their approval percentages up (without dumbing down quality)?

Amending existing/ putting new Article 4 Directions in place

2020-10-07T14:42:44Z

Article 4 Directions (A4Ds) preventing office to resi. conversions came into effect in July 2020 in a number of locations in the Council area. These therefore fall within the 'material period', under the Amendment Regulations and are held in abeyance, as I understand it, until July 2021.

I am looking to see whether it is possible to vary or make new A4Ds for these areas. However, it is difficult to see how we can amend an A4D in line with something which is held in abeyance and also whether this would have any effect in the future in view of the changes being held in abeyance. Also it is unknown at present what further changes will be made to the GDPO and what Guidance will be published. In addition, there is the uncertainty relating to the current legal challenge in the High Court seeking permission to judicially review the changes to the UCO and GPDO and how these were bought into effect.

I would be interested to know whether other Councils have grappled with these issues or whether like me, they are awaiting the outcome of the High Court challenge, new guidance and changes to the GDPO before seeing what can be done.

Resources survey - ugly comparison report

2019-11-15T10:00:46Z

As trailed at our "heads of planning" conference in September we've made a short report for everyone showing them how their inputs compared to their peers.

It is ugly and I was hoping to find time to make it pretty but I think it best just to send it out now rather than wait any longer.

Everybody who submitted a return gets a report. If you didn't you don't. Emails have gone to the address in the spreadsheet you sent back to us.

You don't need to do anything - if it is not helpful you can just delete it.

Any Qs let me know either here or directly.

Housing Delivery test results out of date from new local plan

2019-04-25T14:30:01Z

Those of you with a brand new plan should be able to get your HDT results recalculated. Apparently it is a simple and painless process - you just need to send in some "proof" and that's it.

Anyone done this ?

Housing Delivery Test results 2018 [published in Feb 2019]

2019-02-20T08:24:34Z

Yesterday the HDT results were published here

More to come...

Planning application fee reporting

2019-01-18T12:02:48Z

I should probably know this, but I'd like to check whether there is any reporting of application fees anywhere ?

It isn't on the PS1 or 2, but is there anywhere else that the fees are already notified ? Otherwise I've got to ask everyone ...

Housing Delivery Test and Local Housing Need handouts

2018-12-03T09:27:59Z

I am waiting for updates to the event materials we used at our events in October. These will update LHN to reflect the latest consultation position and add in the new HFR data for 20174-18.

In the mean time, here are the old versions. This is a good place to ask questions, but perhaps hold off until these updates are done ?

EDIT - see post below

New ONS projections and HDT results

2018-09-26T11:06:13Z

Everyone has been focussed on how the new ONS projections will work with the new standard method. They do also feed into the HDT calculations because they are used in transition (ie the figures themselves are used rather than post method as LHN).
My friends in the LGA research team are building some tools* for LPAs to model both their HDT and their position on a forward-looking 5 year land supply.
They have shared with me an early cut that shows the "before" and "after" following the new projections. For many councils this is good news in that they improve a grade boundary [sorry my children had exams recently]. A smaller number of councils drop. However it could be argued that this new volatility in the numbers should mean that even those councils scraping a pass should put themselves through the rigour of an action plan.
It's very hot off the press and I haven't really got my own head round it yet, but here goes. Any questions, feel free.

* these tools will be launched in a couple of weeks at the events, tested, and then shared with everyone if you were wondering

Student and Other Communal Accommodation in 5 Year Land Supply

2018-08-15T14:26:22Z

The recently published Housing Delivery Test Rule Book includes a methodology for making adjustments for net student and other communal accommodation so that they are counted in the figure for net homes delivered in a year. For student accommodation this is the net increase in bedrooms divided by the average number of students in student only households (currently 2.5). For other communal accommodation the equation is net increase in bedrooms divided by the average number of adults in households (currently 1.8). The local authorities that I work for are intending to use this methodology within their 5 year land supply reports to ensure consistency with the Housing Delivery Test. Are other local authorities intending to do the same?

PAS Conference 2018 hand-outs

2018-08-02T09:24:49Z

In July 2018 we held out PAS conference in Milton Keynes. To support our work we made some hand-outs based on current sets of planning statistics. These files were used to make these handouts (they were trimmed and adjusted to fit on sheets, but the data is the same).

In case they are helpful more generally, I am putting them here. Note that they represent a snapshot in time, so will go out of date as soon as another quarter of data is published or the HDT results published in November.

There are three files - one each for DM 'speed' and 'quality' and a new one prepared by LGA colleagues as model for HDT.

The HDT model comes with some caveats - see the PAS conference page on our main website for a slide deck which explains some of the judgements we've had to make.

Self build monitoring of permissions

2017-10-09T11:29:11Z

Hi,

I was wondering if any other authorities which do not have CIL are monitoring permissions granted for self-build plots currently? and if so how they are going about this without looking at the CIL exemption certificates?

Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

RE: What is CLIP ?

2017-05-02T09:03:35Z

Thanks Richard.

What is CLIP ?

2017-04-28T07:34:19Z

CLIP is a group that meets several times per year. It allows central and local government people to review changes made to statistical returns before they are introduced.

It stands for Central Local Information Partnership [I think]

For planning, it is where things like

- forthcoming changes to PS1/2 CPS 1/2 collection are dicussed (eg PIP and TDC)

- other statistical collections are thought through (eg brownfield register, self-build register)

We also get an overview of policy direction and how it might relate to monitoring the planning world.

RE: Moving thread

2017-04-27T08:51:26Z

Richard Crawley:

This topic got discussed at CLIP today. There is guidance prepared, but it had been delayed by purdah. I'm still mulling over the slightly strange discussion we had.

Hi Richard

What or who is "CLIP"?

Thanks

Moving thread

2017-04-26T16:23:36Z

This topic got discussed at CLIP today. There is guidance prepared, but it had been delayed by purdah. I'm still mulling over the slightly strange discussion we had.

moved

2017-04-26T16:19:09Z

the planning statistics forum is where the PS1/2 people hang out ...