Planning Permission: Judicial Review
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of judicial review claims relating to planning decisions have been successful in each of the last five years.
Answered by Ministry of Justice
The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data on judicial review cases in England and Wales as part of the Civil Justice statistics quarterly bulletin (Civil justice statistics quarterly - GOV.UK). The consolidated figures for all judicial review cases since 2000 are available at the “Civil Justice and Judicial Review data (zip file)” link.
The average duration of completed judicial review cases categorised as significant planning court claims in each of the last five years is as follows: 204 days in 2021, 233 days in 2022, 226 days in 2023, 244 days in 2024, and 205 days in 2025.
The proportion of completed judicial review claims relating to planning decisions which have been successful in each of the last years is as follows;
| Cases eligible for a final hearing |
| Cases found in favour of the claimant | |||
Year | Cases | Actual to | % of all cases | Actual cases | Actual to | % of all cases |
2021 | 238 | 105 | 44% | 47 | 9 | 4% |
2022 | 193 | 88 | 46% | 47 | 10 | 5% |
2023 | 201 | 61 | 30% | 41 | 17 | 8% |
2024 | 198 | 59 | 30% | 22 | 4 | 2% |
2025 | 209 | 49 | 23% | 14 | 1 | 0% |
These estimates take into account those cases categorised as significant planning court claims and other planning cases.
It is worth noting that the 2025 figures are unlikely to be the final figures, since more recent cases will need time to work their way through the judicial review process.
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