Causeway Coast and Glens District Council submitted the second highest number of planning applications throughout the whole of Northern Ireland in the second quarter of 2016, latest statistics have revealed.   

 Figures released this week by the NI Statistics and Research Agency reveal that during the second quarter of 2016 (July-Sept), the highest number of planning applications were submitted by Causeway Coast and Glens Council (329 applications) and Belfast City Council (471 applications).

During Q2 (July-September 2016), a total of 3,324 planning applications were decided in this time in Northern Ireland – a decrease of 11% compared to the previous quarter.

Causeway Coast and Glens Council also had the highest number of enforcement cases of all the 11 Councils throughout this quarter, with 156 enforcement cases compared to 125 in Belfast City Council.

 The number of planning applications received in NI during Q2 was 3,058, an increase of nearly 4% on the same period last year – with Belfast City and Causeway Coast topping the number of applications submitted.  Nearly three quarters of these applications in NI were for full planning permission (74.7%).

At the end of September 2016, there were 6,687 live applications in the planning system across NI.  Of these, 1,369 applications were in the planning system for over one year.  In summary, over 1 out of every 5 live applications in the planning system was over one year old.  The overall approval rate for all planning applications was 93.5%, down by 1.4% when compared to a year earlier.

Residential applications for houses make up the largest proportion of planning applications in Northern Ireland.  During Q2, residential applications made up 60.6% of all Northern Ireland planning applications.  The number of residential planning applications decided in Q2 was 2,022, down 4.8% compared to the previous quarter.