Cornwall tops 'unreasonable planning decisions' table

But it handles most applications in country

Cornwall Council has hit the top spot of a national “league table” of the local authorities which have made the most “unreasonable” planning decisions.

The council has had to pay out hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money in costs since 2019.

A four-month investigation by Sky News used Freedom of Information (FoI) laws to interrogate every local planning council in England about the number of unreasonable decisions that resulted in over £20 million of costs being paid out. Many did not respond.

The decisions referred to are those subsequently overturned on appeal to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate as ‘unreasonable’. It can uphold appeals against local planners’ decisions for a number of reasons.

Cornwall Council has topped what Sky News says is the first-ever league table of councils that have a high number of overturned decisions where costs were paid. The council also featured in the ‘Top 10′ list of the authorities which had to pay out the highest amount of costs.

The broadcaster did note that Cornwall Council deals with a lot of planning cases. In fact, it was the busiest of any planning authority in England in 2024/25 with almost 5,500 applications to consider.

More than 100 local councils did not respond to the FoI requests, while hundreds more only released partial data. However, two-thirds of councils did respond to Sky News’ survey.

Cornwall Council has dubbed the figures “a blunt tool collated from an FoI response of which over 100 authorities, unlike Cornwall Council, chose not to respond” and said the report doesn’t take into account the size of the authorities, the number of applications determined and the proportion appealed or their complexity.

The information on the number of council planning decisions deemed “unreasonable” by the Planning Inspectorate, which hears appeals, is not collected by central government, meaning this is the first known exercise of this kind, says the broadcaster.

Sky News found there were 1,685 cases of “unreasonable behaviour” since 2019, which has meant a payout of £20.4m in legal and consultancy costs.

Councils with the most “unreasonable decisions” since 2019

Cornwall Council – 40
North Yorkshire Council – 38
Bromley London Borough Council – 27
Wiltshire Council – 25
Dorset Council – 21
Enfield London Borough Council – 19 (incomplete data)
Wychavon District Council – 17
Tandbridge District Council – 16
Elmbridge Borough Council – 14
Epping Forest District Council – 13 (incomplete data)
Cornwall Council is in ninth place in Sky News’ list of the highest cost for “unreasonable decisions” since 2019, with payouts of £338,747 in costs to appellants.

At the top of the list is Uttlesford District Council with a payout of £2.1m for Stansted airport (incomplete data supplied by a FoI request).

Sky News has provided us with additional information not included in its report. It used 2019 as a cut-off for the league table as many councils didn’t provide data from the period before then – from 2015 – due to retention rules, but the Cornwall numbers before then are even higher.

Costs paid by Cornwall Council due to “unreasonable decisions” since 2015 are shown below. Not all matters have been settled as yet so these figures may change.

2015-16: 17 payments totalling £137,714.15
2016-17: 13 payments totalling £80,922.83
2017-18: six payments totalling £434,294.04
2018-19: eight payments totalling £12,773.90
2019-20: six payments totalling £30,103.20
2020-21: five payments totalling £17,823.90
2021-22: five payments totalling £12,480.66
2022-23: four payments totalling £18,750.86
2023-24: seven payments totalling £37,154.40
2024-25: eight payments totalling £30,171.54
2025-26: five payments totalling £192,262.50
The Sky News report says that councils are ignoring explicit instructions to approve planning projects from ministers.

It comes as tensions between councils of all political stripes are rising with Government ministers, who are desperate to hit their target of 1.5 million new homes in England by the end of the Parliament.

Under Labour’s stringent National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), Cornwall is mandated to construct more new homes than any other local authority in the UK, with annual targets skyrocketing from 2,707 to 4,421 homes per year.

The pressure of delivering the target has been a moot point at many Cornwall Council planning committee meetings.

A spokesperson for Cornwall Council responded to the Sky News investigation: “These figures are a blunt tool collated from an FoI response of which over 100 authorities, unlike Cornwall Council, chose not to respond.

“The tables do not take into account the size of the authorities, the number of applications determined and the proportion appealed, nor the type and complexity of the applications. Therefore they do not represent a cohesive picture of performance.

“Cornwall Council is an extremely large authority dealing with one of the highest numbers of planning applications in the country. Over 90 per cent of applications are approved but rightly there are some applications that do not accord with our policies and are refused.

“Complex applications are more likely to be decided by planning committees and the appeals are more likely to be hearings or public inquiries, which are significantly more costly.

“Authorities like Cornwall Council deal with more major applications will inevitably have more exposure to a higher appeal risk than smaller authorities dealing with minor applications.

“Cornwall Council has a strong track record of defending planning appeals, successfully defending on average 75 per cent of appeals submitted.

“We have seen a dip more recently in this success rate. That is due to the significant increase in housing targets from the Government which results in more committee refusals being overturned.

“There is also a time lag in appeal decisions where the Inspector may consider an appeal on a decision made by the council before the targets changed, leading to more successful appeals for the period of transition.”