Evidence/London Small Sites/Ealing

Ealing

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.

879 applications · 629 decided · 69% approved Data to Mar 2026 Release August 2026
Applications logged
879
Full, householder and minor resi since Feb 2023
Decided so far
629
434 approved, 195 refused, 36 withdrawn
Approval rate
69%
Roughly two in three decided applications
Typical time to decide
9 weeks
Median determination time across all small sites

Ealing, area by area

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

Acton 129 Ealing 159 Greenford 68 Hanwell 47 Northolt 20 Perivale 42 Southall 164 Approval rate 57% 75%
Spotlight

Acton

Decisions
129
Approved
91
Refused
38
Approval rate
71%
Hover or tap any tile to see that area’s detail.
Tile positions are schematic, not to geographic scale. Each hex represents one of Ealing’s sub-areas as defined in the council’s own planning framework.

Greenford approves 75% of applications. Perivale, closer to 57%. Same borough, same policy, 18 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. Conversion is by far the most common route in Ealing, but it's extension that sees the highest approval rate.

Approved Refused Bar length = sample size (max n=245)
Conversion
67%n=245
Mid-terrace
68%n=118
Demolish & rebuild
71%n=97
Mixed use
76%n=63
End-of-terrace
58%n=48
Extension
84%n=25
Backland
62%n=13
Infill
75%n=12
Scheme types with fewer than 10 decisions in the window are not shown here.
Conversion, dividing one home into flats
Mid-terrace, insertion into the middle of a terrace
Demolish & rebuild, existing building replaced with new homes
Mixed use, ground-floor commercial with homes above
End-of-terrace, new infill at the end of a terraced row
Extension, rear, side or upward additions creating a new unit
Backland, new build on rear gardens or courtyard land
Infill, new build on small pockets of land

Why applications fail in Ealing

Of every hundred reasons cited in refused decisions in Ealing, space standards accounts for the biggest slice at 40%.

Space standards, unit and room sizes, ceiling heights, private outdoor space 40
Design quality, bulk, massing, appearance, materials 18
Neighbour amenity, overlooking, loss of light, privacy, noise 9
Transport and parking, parking, highway safety, cycle storage 9
Other, mixed or uncategorised reasons 9
Policy, land use, affordable housing, principle of development 4
Infrastructure, drainage, energy, biodiversity 3
Permitted development, prior approval conditions not met 3
Insufficient information, missing reports, surveys or assessments 2
Heritage, conservation areas, listed buildings 2
Read as: “Of every 100 reasons cited in a refusal, 40 relate to space standards.” A single refusal often names two or more reasons. Based on 445 reasons extracted from refused decision notices.

In Ealing, the most common ground for refusal is space standards.

Is Ealing getting busier?

Decisions per quarter have held roughly steady since 2023, and approval rates have stayed in the same band over the same window.

Decisions per quarter
Approval rate (%)
0 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% borough avg 69% '23 Q1 · 68% · n=19 '23 Q2 · 71% · n=52 '23 Q3 · 62% · n=47 '23 Q4 · 75% · n=44 '24 Q1 · 57% · n=68 '24 Q2 · 73% · n=60 '24 Q3 · 75% · n=64 '24 Q4 · 60% · n=30 '25 Q1 · 62% · n=13 '25 Q2 · 73% · n=59 '25 Q3 · 63% · n=43 '25 Q4 · 71% · n=56 '26 Q1 · 74% · n=73 '23 Q1 '23 Q2 '23 Q3 '23 Q4 '24 Q1 '24 Q2 '24 Q3 '24 Q4 '25 Q1 '25 Q2 '25 Q3 '25 Q4 '26 Q1
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 Ealing'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.

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 Ealing 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.

Research using this evidence

All research →

Data sources & method

Applications. Sourced from the Greater London Authority (GLA) Planning Datahub and Ealing 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.