Planning permission in Guildford
What actually happens to planning applications decided by Guildford Borough Council: approval rates, decision times, appeal odds and the development plan they are judged against. Figures cover 4,467 applications decided in the two years to July 2026, from the council's public planning register.
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How long does planning permission take in Guildford?
Half of decided applications took 62 days or less from validation to decision. The middle 50% of applications took between 46 and 114 days, and 45.5% were decided inside the 8-week statutory target for minor applications. Complex or contested schemes take longer.
The Guildford local plan
The Local Plan: Strategy and Sites 2015 to 2034 (adopted 2019) and the Local Plan: Development Management Policies document (2023) form the development plan, along with seven made neighbourhood plans.
A Local Plan update is at a very early scoping stage with no published draft policies.
What tends to shape decisions here: The Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area requires mitigation (SANG and SAMM contributions) for most net new homes in its zone of influence, and extensive Metropolitan Green Belt plus the Surrey Hills National Landscape constrain greenfield sites. The council has recently been unable to demonstrate a five year housing land supply (around 3 years).
If Guildford says no: appeal odds
Between 2021 and 2025 the Planning Inspectorate overturned 33.4% of appealed Guildford refusals (146 of 437 decided appeals). The national average is 31.1%. More detail, including how Guildford ranks nationally: planning appeals in Guildford.
Source: decisions published on the Guildford Borough Council public planning register, two years to July 2026. Approval rate = approvals divided by approvals plus refusals; withdrawn applications and other outcomes are excluded. We track 16,800 Guildford applications in total. Plan facts as of July 2026; always check the council's own pages for the latest position.
Planning a project in Guildford?
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