Evidence/London Small Sites/Bromley

Bromley

Small residential planning decisions from January 2023 onwards, coded from the council’s own register to the same method used in all 33 London planning authorities.

415 applications · 368 decided · 48% approved Data to Jul 2025 Release August 2026

Applications logged

415

Full, householder and minor resi since Mar 2023

Decided so far

368

175 approved, 193 refused, 7 withdrawn

Approval rate

48%

Under half of decided applications

Typical time to decide

9 weeks

Median determination time across all small sites

Bromley, area by area

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

Spotlight

Beckenham

Decisions

Approved

Refused

Approval rate

54%

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

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

Chislehurst approves 55% of applications. Biggin Hill & Rural, closer to 20%. Same borough, same policy, 35 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 Bromley, but it's extension that sees the highest approval rate.

Approved Refused Bar length = sample size (max n=154)

Demolish & rebuild

44%n=154

Conversion

52%n=110

Extension

62%n=29

Backland

25%n=24

End-of-terrace

52%n=21

Mid-terrace

46%n=13

Infill

50%n=10

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

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

Backland, new build on rear gardens or courtyard land

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

Mid-terrace, insertion into the middle of a terrace

Infill, new build on small pockets of land

Why applications fail in Bromley

Of every hundred reasons cited in refused decisions in Bromley, design quality accounts for the biggest slice at 22%.

Design 22%

Space 21%

Neighbour 19%

Insufficient 11%

Transport 9%

Design quality, bulk, massing, appearance, materials 22

Space standards, unit and room sizes, ceiling heights, private outdoor space 21

Neighbour amenity, overlooking, loss of light, privacy, noise 19

Insufficient information, missing reports, surveys or assessments 11

Transport and parking, parking, highway safety, cycle storage 9

Loss of existing use, commercial, employment or community floorspace 4

Heritage, conservation areas, listed buildings 4

Infrastructure, drainage, energy, biodiversity 3

Policy, land use, affordable housing, principle of development 3

Other, mixed or uncategorised reasons 2

Read as: “Of every 100 reasons cited in a refusal, 22 relate to design quality.” A single refusal often names two or more reasons. Based on 377 reasons extracted from refused decision notices.

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

Is Bromley getting busier?

Decisions per quarter have held roughly steady since 2023, and approval rates have edged down 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.

Interrogate the data yourself

Every figure on this page comes from Bromley's own planning decisions. We publish the underlying data so you can check it, replicate our findings, or use it in your own tools. Verify against the council's planning portal before relying on any record, and tell us if you spot a problem.

Download the data (Excel) CSV

Decided small-site applications, 1 to 9 units. Planning-decision layer only: Energy Performance Certificate, Land Registry and case-officer fields are held back. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Planning London Datahub, Greater London Authority. Method.

About these figures

The figures describe decided applications for one to nine homes. They show what has happened in Bromley over the period covered; they do not predict the outcome of an individual application, and no approval probability is offered for any site or scheme.

Sample sizes are shown with the findings. Where the available evidence is too thin for a result to carry meaning, it is withheld or marked accordingly.

Method Current release Compare other boroughs

Research using this evidence

Research Given what you received: the outcome differential — Bromley’s mix-adjusted differential is −6.4 points.

All research →

Data sources & method

Applications. Sourced from the Greater London Authority (GLA) Planning Datahub and Bromley 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: October 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. See our Terms of Use for full details on how this data is compiled and the limits of its use.