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<redacted>	FOI ref 2024011

Dear <redacted>

Thank you for your email of requesting the following information:

Over the last 12 months what was the approval rate for minor housing schemes (less than 9 units) at appeal compared with appeals for more than 10 units?

In how many appeals for minor housing schemes over the course of the last 12 months have Inspectors referred, at all, in their decision notice to paragraph 70 of the NPPF which notes that small and medium sized sites can make an important contribution to meeting the housing requirements of an area, and also that LPAs should give ‘great weight to the benefits of using suitable sites within existing settlements for homes’. (Note that the paragraph number changed following the revision of the NPPF).

Further to question 2, in how many appeals has support for small sites in the NPPF been afforded any material weight in the final decision, or been judged to outweigh a housing supply shortfall where one existed. If you could provide this both as a total number and also as a percentage that would be helpful.

I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

In answer to your question:

Over the last 12 months the approval rate for minor housing schemes (9 or less units) was 21.8% compared with 38.6% for appeals for 10 or more units.

We do not have a database of decision letters that allows us to search for, or count, specific content within the letters. However, we release decision letters here: Planning Inspectorate

I have provided a spreadsheet with the case numbers for appeals for minor housing in the last year.

See answer for question 2

Background notes:

I have used your definition of major (10+ units) and minor housing (9 units or less). When using our field of minor housing the approval rate is 21.0% compared to 41.6% for major housing.

Data was taken from the casework database which can be found here: Planning Inspectorate Casework Database - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The 12 month range was for decisions made 1st January 2023 to 31st December 2023.

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Yours sincerely

Data and Performance Team