Planning application statistics released for Cork city and county council

The percentage of invalidated planning applications as a proportion of all applications made for Cork County Council decreased from 23.9% to 22.8% and for Cork City Council decreased from 16.1% to 11.2% from the years 2020 to 2021, a new report has found.

The Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) this week published its Annual Overview of the Planning System 2021 which reviews key trends and outputs over the year in the wider planning system in Ireland.

It includes a comparison with patterns in previous years and is the only analysis of its kind in the Irish planning system.

It found that in Cork City Council in 2021, 86% of all planning applications were granted permission while 14% were refused. The numbers for Cork County Council were 93% and 7% respectively.

In total, there were 659 planning applications approved and 107 refused by Cork City Council while Cork County Council approved 2,750 and refused 221 in 2021.

Overall in 2021, 9.1% of planning application decisions made by Cork City Council were appealed to An Bord Pleanála. Of these, 18 % were reversed. In Cork County Council, 4.4% of decisions were appealed with 24.7% reversed.

Planning Regulator, Niall Cussen, said:

“2021 was a year in which local authorities such as Cork City and County Councils continued to deliver key statutory planning functions within strict timelines and in an operational environment that was challenging due to public health restrictions imposed as a result of the Covid pandemic.

“It is a great credit to the planning process in general that high levels of throughput in handling planning applications and appeals continued despite the pressures.”