Planning permission in Teignbridge
What actually happens to planning applications decided by Teignbridge District Council: approval rates, decision times, appeal odds and the development plan they are judged against. Figures cover 3,272 applications decided in the two years to August 2026, from the council's public planning register.
GapSense is an AI review for UK planning. It reads the Teignbridge policies that will decide your application, screens your site or draft against them, and flags the risks before the council sees it. No card needed.
How long does planning permission take in Teignbridge?
Half of decided applications took 53 days or less from validation to decision. The middle 50% of applications took between 37 and 60 days, and 71.9% were decided inside the 8-week statutory target for minor applications. Complex or contested schemes take longer.
The Teignbridge local plan
The development plan is the Teignbridge Local Plan 2020-2040, adopted on 19 May 2026, together with a set of site allocations carried forward from the older 2013-2033 plan, eleven made neighbourhood plans, and the Devon minerals and waste plans for those types of proposal. Older sources and appeal decisions still describe the 2013-2033 plan as current, so check which plan a policy comes from before relying on it. The council charges the Community Infrastructure Levy under a revised schedule effective from 1 June 2026.
A replacement plan is already under way but carries no weight yet. The council gave notice on 29 June 2026, five weeks after adopting the current plan, that it will prepare a Teignbridge Local Plan 2029-2044, because national policy on how housing need is calculated has changed. Preparation starts in October 2026, the first draft consultation is due in November 2027 and adoption is expected in 2029. Nothing has been published beyond the timetable, so there are no emerging policies to weigh against the adopted plan.
What tends to shape decisions here: The housing position is unusually settled for a district this size. The Housing Delivery Test result is 83 per cent, which brings a 20 per cent buffer but not the presumption, and the examining inspectors confirmed 5.73 years of housing land supply at April 2026 against a requirement of 720 homes a year, so the tilted balance is not currently engaged. Habitat constraints do most of the work instead. Homes and holiday accommodation within 10km of the Exe Estuary and Dawlish Warren need a per unit mitigation payment and alternative greenspace, and the South Hams designation for greater horseshoe bats brings survey and lighting requirements far from any roost. The Undeveloped Coast is a strong restriction along the coastline, coastal change affects Dawlish and Teignmouth, and the west of the district sits inside Dartmoor National Park, where the National Park Authority is the planning authority rather than the council. Appeals here succeeded 32 per cent of the time across 273 decisions.
If Teignbridge says no: appeal odds
Between 2021 and 2025 the Planning Inspectorate overturned 32.2% of appealed Teignbridge refusals (88 of 273 decided appeals). The national average is 31.1%. More detail, including how Teignbridge ranks nationally: planning appeals in Teignbridge.
Source: decisions published on the Teignbridge District 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 11,709 Teignbridge applications in total. Plan facts as of July 2026; always check the council's own pages for the latest position.
Planning a project in Teignbridge?
GapSense reads the policies that will decide your application and screens your site against them in minutes. No card needed.