Research has revealed new houses in Felixstowe contributed towards East Suffolk topping the table for laces with the highest planning permission requests during the pandemic.

Leader Floors looked at planning application data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to calculate the local authorities undertaking the most and least small home improvements during the pandemic.

From this data, East Suffolk was revealed as the place submitting the highest number of requests YoY with a huge 48% increase in applications during the three national lockdowns. Out of these applications, 52% were accepted and 32% were rejected. This was followed by Dorset with a huge 43% increase in home planning applications and Barking and Dagenham with a 38% increase.

Interestingly, 14 local districts had no planning permission requests submitted during the first (23rd March 2020 - 10th May 2020), second (31st October 2020 - 2nd December 2020) or third (4th January 2021 - 8th March 2021) lockdowns.

Local authority with the biggest % increase in applications lockdown vs non-lockdown

Local authority with the biggest % decrease in applications lockdown vs non-lockdown

Lockdown one - 23rd March 2020 - 10th May 2020 (lockdown eased)

• 120,645 total planning permission requests submitted
• 98,933 total granted requests
• 21,712 total denied requests
• 82.00% of all requests granted 

Lockdown two - 31st October 2020 - 2nd December 2020

• 112,020 total planning permission requests submitted
• 91,532 total granted requests
• 20,488 total denied requests
• 81.71% of all requests granted 

Lockdown three - 4th January 2021 - 8th March 2021 (Lockdown eased)

• 111,267 total planning permission requests submitted
• 90,975 total granted requests
• 20,292 total denied requests
• 81.76% of all requests granted 

During Covid and the various lockdowns, it seems that planning permission submissions for some local authorities drastically dropped in comparison to pre-covid. But why? Well, many planning permissions that were due to expire during a lockdown were extended thanks to construction delays that Covid caused, meaning they didn't need to re-apply.

As we can see from the data above, more planning permission requests were submitted in the first lockdown, this is likely because, at the time, no one knew to what extent workers were going to stop. The numbers then plummeted during the second and third lockdown when it was clear that many tradespeople weren't able to work as much.

Now things are getting back to normal, we expect there to be a boom in planning permission requests.

People also began taking home improvements into their own hands while they had no other options. DIY trends peaked on social media such as Instagram and TikTok and, according to a survey carried out by Aviva, 85% of 2,000 UK respondents engaged in home improvement projects during lockdown.

Statista also revealed that online sales of home improvements and gardening products rose with the sales of plants, seeds and bulbs increasing by 48.2%, paint sales increased by 47.1%, building material sales increased by 31.4%, and the number of tools and equipment bought rose by 14.7%.

About Leader Floors

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