After a decision

You have a decision. Here is the evidence that informs the next move.

A planning decision has landed, and you are weighing the next move: appeal, redesign, resubmit, or sell the site on. Each route has a different basis in the record. How the same borough has treated comparable schemes is visible: the decisions that cluster in design, amenity, transport, and a borough’s own reading of policy. Read that record and an owner, and their agent, decide on evidence rather than instinct.

The same independent methodology applies to any decided scheme, and returns the same figures whoever asks. Public borough dashboards are free; a single named site can be read in detail with a Site Assessment.

The decision in context, in numbers

4,047 refused schemes carry fully coded refusal reasons across London. A single decision reads differently once you can see the pattern it sits inside.

43.6%
Pan-London refusal rate
On the small-site (1 to 9 unit) cohort. The boroughs at the harsher end refuse closer to 7 in 10.
~1,500
Refusals per year
Around thirty new refused decisions land each week, each adding to the comparable record.
35.5%
Lead with design or character
Of first-listed refusal reasons — the largest single category. Policy compliance (18.9%) and space standards (13.5%) follow.

Three real refusal reasons, on schemes like yours

Verbatim text pulled from London Decision Notices in the dataset. These are not the most extreme cases. They are the most common.

By reason of its layout, scale, massing and design, the proposal represents an overdevelopment of the site which would result in a cramped form of development that would be out of keeping with the character of the area. Croydon, design / character · the largest single refusal category: 35.5% of first-listed reasons
The proposed development would constitute an unneighbourly form of development that would harm the amenity of [neighbour] in the form of being overbearing, creating an increased sense of enclosure and loss of sunlight. Croydon, amenity · enclosure and loss of light are recurring amenity themes
The proposed parking, cycle and refuse area would have a poor quality layout and it has not been demonstrated that the rear of the application site can accommodate the required refuse, cycle and parking provision. Croydon, transport · access and parking layout are recurring transport themes

The phrasing repeats. A refusal reason is the borough’s view of how a site reads against three years of comparable decisions. Most of that view sits on the public record if you know where to look, both before a scheme is filed and after a decision lands.

Three options the data has views on

Option 1 · Appeal

Is the borough wrong, or is the scheme wrong?

Appeals against design refusals run at materially lower success rates than appeals against process or policy errors. We can show you the borough’s appeal-success rate for your refusal category, and the precedents that came back positive.

Option 2 · Resubmit

What changes pass, what changes don’t?

Most resubmitted schemes are refused again on the same grounds. The schemes that do get through tend to make two or three specific changes. We can show you what those changes look like in your borough, drawn from the comparables that succeeded.

Option 3 · Walk away

Is the site the problem?

Some sites are systematically harder. Backland infill in conservation areas. Density above the local approved median. Sites the borough has already refused twice on similar grounds. Sometimes the right move is to sell to someone whose model fits the borough.

What a Site Assessment shows for a decided scheme

You send the address, the application reference, and the decision notice. Within two working days of brief confirmation you receive an HTML and PDF Site Assessment containing:

  • A read on each refusal reason against the borough’s comparable record
  • Comparable approvals in the borough on similar sites: addresses, schemes, what they did differently
  • How the unit count sits against what the borough has approved at the current count and at lower counts
  • Appeal-precedent data for the specific refusal category in this borough
  • A capacity read: the unit count and density the borough has actually approved on comparable sites
  • A 30-minute follow-up call with the analyst (Abre Etteh, ARB-chartered, author of the LB Merton Small Sites SPD) to walk through the report

The Site Assessment does not recommend what to do. It is the comparable evidence underneath the decision, on the same independent basis whoever commissions it.

Start with the public record

The free borough dashboards show every borough’s approval rate, refusal pattern and quarterly trend, refreshed each quarter, no sign-up required. They are the same evidence base, read at the level of the whole borough.

Browse the borough dashboards → Read the methodology

For a deeper read on a single site against that record after a decision, we can work through the evidence with you, on the same independent basis whoever asks.