London Borough of Lambeth

How Lambeth decides on small housing schemes

Every decision on sites of nine units or fewer, coded from the council's own register and refreshed each quarter. What gets built, what gets approved, and what trips applications up.

Last updated April 2026 555 applications tracked Window: Jan 2023 to Mar 2026 8 areas, 8 scheme types

Applications logged

555

Full, householder and minor resi since Jan 2023

Decided so far

433

244 approved, 189 refused, 37 withdrawn

Approval rate

56%

Just over half of decided applications

Typical time to decide

9 weeks

Median determination time across all small sites

Lambeth, area by area

Colour shows how often applications get approved. Numbers show how many were decided. Hover or tap an area for detail.

Spotlight

Brixton

Decisions

Approved

Refused

Approval rate

39%

Hover or tap any tile to see that area’s detail.

Tile positions are schematic, not to geographic scale. Each hex represents one of Lambeth’s sub-areas as defined in the council’s own planning framework.

Waterloo approves 100% of applications. Brixton, closer to 39%. Same borough, same policy, 61 percentage points of difference.

Which kinds of schemes get approved?

Bar length shows how many of each type were decided. The split shows the share approved versus refused. Demolish & rebuild is by far the most common route in Lambeth, but it's end-of-terrace that sees the highest approval rate.

Approved Refused Bar length = sample size (max n=134)

Demolish & rebuild

67%n=134

Conversion

52%n=128

Mid-terrace

26%n=38

End-of-terrace

88%n=32

Extension

38%n=26

Mixed use

70%n=20

Backland

41%n=17

Infill

41%n=17

Scheme types with fewer than 10 decisions in the window are not shown here.

Demolish & rebuild, existing building replaced with new homes

Conversion, dividing one home into flats

Mid-terrace, insertion into the middle of a terrace

End-of-terrace, new infill at the end of a terraced row

Extension, rear, side or upward additions creating a new unit

Mixed use, ground-floor commercial with homes above

Backland, new build on rear gardens or courtyard land

Infill, new build on small pockets of land

Why applications fail in Lambeth

Of every hundred reasons cited in refused decisions in Lambeth, design quality accounts for the biggest slice at 27%.

Design 27%

Transport 19%

Unit 13%

Amenity 11%

Open 11%

Design quality, bulk, massing, appearance 27

Transport, parking, safety, access 19

Unit sizes, below space standards 13

Amenity, overlooking, daylight, noise 11

Open space, loss of garden or green space 11

Policy, affordable housing, density targets 6

Delegated process 4

Other, mixed reasons 4

Infrastructure, access, parking, drainage 2

Heritage, conservation areas, listed setting 2

Read as: “Of every 100 reasons cited in a refusal, 27 relate to design quality.” A single refusal often names two or more reasons. Based on 622 reasons extracted from refused decision notices.

In Lambeth, what gets a scheme refused is usually how it looks, not how many homes it adds.

Is Lambeth getting busier?

Decisions per quarter have held roughly steady since 2023, and approval rates have drifted upward over the same window.

Decisions per quarter

Approval rate (%)

Hover any bar or dot for exact quarterly values. The most recent quarter may be partial while pending decisions work through.

Thinking about a specific site?

The dashboard gives you the borough picture. If you have a particular address in mind, we can tell you what the comparable decisions say about your odds, density and capacity.

Request a Site Assessment → See other boroughs

Data sources & method

Applications. Sourced from the Greater London Authority (GLA) Planning Datahub and Lambeth Council’s online planning register. Covers full planning, householder, and minor residential applications of nine units or fewer decided in the window shown above.

Decisions and timing. Outcomes and determination times are taken from the council’s published decision notices.

Refusal reasons. Extracted from refused decision notices that were publicly available. Not every refusal has a readable notice, so totals count all refusals but the reason breakdown covers only those we could read.

Scheme classification. Site types (conversion, demolish & rebuild, extension, and so on) are coded from application descriptions and drawings. Areas are mapped from postcodes and ward names using the council’s own sub-area definitions.

Update frequency. Refreshed quarterly. Next refresh: July 2026.

Nothing here is planning advice. Outcomes are historical and do not predict individual cases. Approval rates vary with site specifics, policy context, and case officer. For a read on a particular site, request a Site Assessment. See our Terms of Use for full details on how this data is compiled and the limits of its use.