It was reported in September that the initial consequence of the pandemic was a deficit in applications in March, April and May,

This situation changed in September and last month saw 58,963 planning applications submitted according to the latest report from the Planning Portal.  This is an increase of 23% compared to October 2019.

Interestingly, last month’s figures were particularly high compared to other years – they were almost equal to July 2020 which saw the highest number of applications on record, 59,062.

The normal trend for November is that applications usually begin to tail off as we near the end of the year. Given the unusual pattern for 2020, this is by no means certain and it will be interesting to see if the current climate and restrictions have an impact on this.

With the number of recent planning enquiries received at The Rural Planning Co we certainly aren’t expecting a slow down at the end of the year!

Author: Marissa Bird