Recent research conducted by Hiscox found that 15% of homeowners are deciding to improve instead of move, whilst among millennial homeowners it is more than 1 in 4 choosing to renovate, rather than splashing the cash on a new home and incurring more debt.

Considering the unpredictability of today’s housing market and factoring in the true cost of moving, improving an existing property has become even more popular and affordable.

Extensive changes to a property or the building of a new dwelling requires planning permission from your local planning authority. According to the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, 116,700 planning permission applications were submitted across England between January to March 2018, of which 88% were approved.

As a result, housing experts at Sellhousefast.uk sought to identify which London borough has had the most approved planning permission applications.

The research was conducted by collating data from the London Data Store, analysing and grouping all ‘live and completed approved planning permissions’ from 2006 to December 2018.

What are the results?

Sellhousefast.uk found that the following six boroughs had the highest number of live or completed approved planning permissions: Croydon (3,865), Westminster (3,674), Wandsworth (3,488), Ealing (3,159), Barnet (3,078) and finally Hackney with 3,046.

The boroughs which remain firmly in the middle with neither the highest or lowest number of planning permissions granted include: Waltham Forest (2,060), Lewisham (2,052), Enfield (2,050), Richmond upon Thames (1,871), Merton (1,845) and Newham (1,825).

At the bottom end of the scale, Sell House Fast discovered the boroughs with the least number of live or completed approved planning permissions since 2006 are: Kingston upon Thames (1,331), Sutton (1,307), Greenwich (1,199), Bexley (1,086), Barking and Dagenham (711) and predictably City of London comes in last with 411.