Newcastle's planning mix is 4 times more heritage-heavy than the national norm. Listed-building and conservation-area work account for nearly 1 in 5 applications.
Newcastle upon Tyne council received 1,741 planning applications in 2025. Of the 2,876 applications decided across 2024 and 2025, it approved 93.7% and refused just 6.3%, about 1 in 16, well below the national refusal rate of 12.4%. Listed-building works ran at 4.0 times the national share, and conservation-area works at 4.2 times. The city's historic fabric drives a planning caseload unlike almost anywhere else in England.
The year in one line
Newcastle upon Tyne council approved 93.7% of decided applications in 2024-2025 and refused just 1 in 16, while listed-building and conservation-area work together made up nearly 18% of all applications, four times the national rate.
What Newcastle Is Building
Heritage work dominates a caseload unlike anywhere typical.
Home extensions remain the single largest category at 27.2% of all applications submitted to Newcastle upon Tyne council in 2024-2025, but the picture is shaped by the city's historic fabric. Listed-building works accounted for 9.6% of applications, four times the national share of 2.4%. Conservation-area works added another 8.1%, against 1.9% nationally. Together, heritage-constrained work made up nearly 18% of the council's entire caseload. HMO conversions also stood out at 3.1%, 2.6 times the national share of 1.2%, reflecting ongoing student and rental demand.
Applications submitted to Newcastle upon Tyne council in 2024-2025, by project type.
A heritage city in the data
Listed-building works (347 applications) and conservation-area works (292 applications) together ran at roughly 4 times the national share. No other category signals the character of a place as plainly as this.
The council verdict
Easy to get permission here.
Of the 2,876 applications decided across 2024-2025, Newcastle upon Tyne council approved 93.7% and refused 6.3%, about 1 in 16. Both figures are better than the national norm: the national approval rate is 87.6% and the national refusal rate is 12.4%, roughly 1 in 8. Permission in Newcastle is considerably more likely than the national average.
About 1 in 16 Newcastle applications was turned down.
of applications were refused, against a national refusal rate of 12.4%. Newcastle's approval rate, at 93.7%, is well above the national norm of 87.6%.
Newcastle vs The National Norm
A heritage caseload, four times the national rate.
Set Newcastle's application mix against the national average and the heritage categories stand apart from every other city in the dataset. Listed-building works ran at 9.6% against 2.4% nationally, four times the norm. Conservation-area works at 8.1% were 4.2 times the national share of 1.9%. HMO conversions at 3.1% were 2.6 times the national 1.2%. At the other end, outbuildings were rare at 1.0%, against a national share of 3.2%. Demolition also ran below the national rate, at 6.2% against 9.1%.
Newcastle's conservation-area works share vs the national norm. Listed-building works ran at 4.0 times national. Together, these two heritage categories accounted for nearly 18% of all applications.
Each bar is Newcastle's share of applications submitted to Newcastle upon Tyne council in 2024-2025; the marker is the national share.
Meanwhile, the market
Prices rose alongside the building work.
Permission may be easier to win here, but prices have kept climbing: the average Newcastle home cost more in the latest full year than the year before.
Newcastle's planning data reveals a city shaped by its built heritage. Nearly one in five applications touches a listed building or conservation area, four times the national share. On top of that, the council refuses just 1 in 16 applications, well below the national rate of 1 in 8. For anyone buying or improving property here, the odds of consent are good, and the heritage caseload signals just how much of the city is protected and actively being maintained.
Where the numbers come from
Planning Data
Applications submitted to Newcastle upon Tyne council in 2025 (volume) and 2024-2025 pooled (shares and rates), sourced from PlanIt and classified from each application's published description. Shares are each category as a percentage of all applications in the pooled window.
Decision Rates
Approval rate is approvals as a share of approvals plus refusals, computed over all decided applications in the 2024-2025 pool. The national benchmarks are computed the same way across all decided applications in England and Wales.
Sales Data
HM Land Registry Price Paid Data for the Newcastle upon Tyne area, the latest full year's completions, with growth measured against the previous year.
The Real Applications
Open the planning applications behind the numbers.
These are real applications submitted to Newcastle upon Tyne council, from listed-building works on landmark structures to retrospective extensions and refused HMO conversions. Open any one to see its full record.
45 Clover Hill, Sunniside NE16 5PU
A single-storey rear extension, the project type Newcastle files most, was granted.
See this property's full record104 Hartside Crescent, Backworth NE27 0SD
A listed-building application for works to a heritage property in the Newcastle upon Tyne area, one of hundreds submitted in 2024-2025.
See this property's full record5 Jasmine Villas, Whickham NE16 4JH
A part two-storey rear extension with a single-storey orangery was approved, adding a bedroom and living space to the house.
See this property's full record7 Vineyard Close, Killingworth NE12 7BP
Consent was given to convert an existing garage into a habitable room and extend the driveway, a common way to add space without building out.
See this property's full record3 Coppice Place NE12 9DA
A detached garage was permitted to be converted into a garden room.
See this property's full record21 Weardale Avenue, Forest Hall NE12 7HX
A single-storey rear and side extension already built was granted permission retrospectively, one of 187 such applications in the 2024-2025 pool.
See this property's full recordCurious about a home in Newcastle upon Tyne?
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