Planning permission in East Suffolk
What actually happens to planning applications decided by East Suffolk Council: approval rates, decision times, appeal odds and the development plan they are judged against. Figures cover 6,973 applications decided in the two years to August 2026, from the council's public planning register.
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How long does planning permission take in East Suffolk?
Half of decided applications took 55 days or less from validation to decision. The middle 50% of applications took between 40 and 75 days, and 61.8% were decided inside the 8-week statutory target for minor applications. Complex or contested schemes take longer.
The East Suffolk local plan
East Suffolk was formed by merging Suffolk Coastal and Waveney in 2019, but the two Local Plans were never merged. The development plan is therefore the Suffolk Coastal Local Plan (adopted September 2020) or the Waveney Local Plan (adopted March 2019), depending on where the site is, plus 31 made neighbourhood plans.
A single East Suffolk Local Plan to replace both is at a very early stage, before Regulation 18, so its weight is minimal.
What tends to shape decisions here: Which of the two Local Plans applies is the first question on any site, and the two use entirely different policy codes. The adopted plans together require about 916 homes a year while the current standard method produces roughly 1,650, an uplift of over 80 per cent. On the last sourceable position the Suffolk Coastal area could demonstrate six years of supply while the Waveney area could show only 3.3, so the tilted balance was engaged for the Waveney area alone. The Suffolk Coastal plan passed its five year anniversary in September 2025, which changes how its supply is measured. The Broads Authority is a separate planning authority for land within its boundary.
If East Suffolk says no: appeal odds
Between 2021 and 2025 the Planning Inspectorate overturned 24.6% of appealed East Suffolk refusals (76 of 309 decided appeals). The national average is 31.1%. More detail, including how East Suffolk ranks nationally: planning appeals in East Suffolk.
Source: decisions published on the East Suffolk Council public planning register, two years to August 2026. Approval rate = approvals divided by approvals plus refusals; withdrawn applications and other outcomes are excluded. We track 23,273 East Suffolk applications in total. Plan facts as of July 2026; always check the council's own pages for the latest position.
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