London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

How Barking and Dagenham decides on small housing schemes

Every decision on sites of nine units or fewer, coded from the council's own register and refreshed each quarter. What gets built, what gets approved, and what trips applications up.

Last updated April 2026 195 applications tracked Window: Jan 2023 to Mar 2026 5 areas, 3 scheme types
Applications logged
195
Full, householder and minor resi since Jan 2023
Decided so far
173
57 approved, 116 refused, 6 withdrawn
Approval rate
33%
Under half of decided applications
Typical time to decide
8 weeks
Median determination time across all small sites

Barking and Dagenham, area by area

Colour shows how often applications get approved. Numbers show how many were decided. Hover or tap an area for detail.

Barking 15 Dagenham 64 Barking Riverside 4 Chadwell Heath 40 Becontree 42 Approval rate 20% 42%
Spotlight

Barking

Decisions
15
Approved
3
Refused
12
Approval rate
20%
Hover or tap any tile to see that area’s detail.
Tile positions are schematic, not to geographic scale. Each hex represents one of Barking and Dagenham’s sub-areas as defined in the council’s own planning framework.

Chadwell Heath approves 42% of applications. Barking, closer to 20%. Same borough, same policy, 22 percentage points of difference.

Which kinds of schemes get approved?

Bar length shows how many of each type were decided. The split shows the share approved versus refused. Conversion is by far the most common route in Barking and Dagenham, but it's end-of-terrace that sees the highest approval rate.

Approved Refused Bar length = sample size (max n=84)
Conversion
20%n=84
Demolish & rebuild
43%n=30
End-of-terrace
61%n=18
Scheme types with fewer than 10 decisions in the window are not shown here.
Conversion, dividing one home into flats
Demolish & rebuild, existing building replaced with new homes
End-of-terrace, new infill at the end of a terraced row

Why applications fail in Barking and Dagenham

Of every hundred reasons cited in refused decisions in Barking and Dagenham, design quality accounts for the biggest slice at 64%.

Design quality, bulk, massing, appearance 64
Other, mixed reasons 18
Transport, parking, safety, access 6
Delegated process 6
Amenity, overlooking, daylight, noise 6
Read as: “Of every 100 reasons cited in a refusal, 64 relate to design quality.” A single refusal often names two or more reasons. Based on 17 reasons extracted from refused decision notices.

In Barking and Dagenham, what gets a scheme refused is usually how it looks, not how many homes it adds.

Is Barking and Dagenham getting busier?

Decisions per quarter have held roughly steady since 2023, and approval rates have drifted upward over the same window.

Decisions per quarter
Approval rate (%)
0 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% borough avg 33% '23 Q2 · 0% · n=16 '23 Q3 · 27% · n=15 '23 Q4 · 25% · n=16 '24 Q1 · 38% · n=8 '24 Q2 · 58% · n=12 '24 Q3 · 50% · n=10 '24 Q4 · 80% · n=5 '25 Q1 · 62% · n=8 '25 Q2 · 36% · n=14 '25 Q3 · 10% · n=20 '25 Q4 · 27% · n=22 '26 Q1 · 38% · n=16 '26 Q2 · 56% · n=9 '23 Q2 '23 Q3 '23 Q4 '24 Q1 '24 Q2 '24 Q3 '24 Q4 '25 Q1 '25 Q2 '25 Q3 '25 Q4 '26 Q1 '26 Q2
Hover any bar or dot for exact quarterly values. The most recent quarter may be partial while pending decisions work through.

Interrogate the data yourself

Every figure on this page comes from Barking and Dagenham's own planning decisions. We publish the underlying data so you can check it, replicate our findings, or use it in your own tools. Verify against the council's planning portal before relying on any record, and tell us if you spot a problem.

Decided small-site applications, 1 to 9 units. Planning-decision layer only: Energy Performance Certificate, Land Registry and case-officer fields are held back. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Methodology.

Thinking about a specific site?

The dashboard gives you the borough picture. If you’re weighing a particular site, the Red Line Review is an independent second opinion before you commit six figures — one sentence on what I’d do if it were my money, and why.

Data sources & method

Applications. Sourced from the Greater London Authority (GLA) Planning Datahub and Barking and Dagenham Council’s online planning register. Covers full planning, householder, and minor residential applications of nine units or fewer decided in the window shown above.

Decisions and timing. Outcomes and determination times are taken from the council’s published decision notices.

Refusal reasons. Extracted from refused decision notices that were publicly available. Not every refusal has a readable notice, so totals count all refusals but the reason breakdown covers only those we could read.

Scheme classification. Site types (conversion, demolish & rebuild, extension, and so on) are coded from application descriptions and drawings. Areas are mapped from postcodes and ward names using the council’s own sub-area definitions.

Update frequency. Refreshed quarterly. Next refresh: July 2026.

Nothing here is planning advice. Outcomes are historical and do not predict individual cases. Approval rates vary with site specifics, policy context, and case officer. For a read on a particular site, request a Red Line Review. See our Terms of Use for full details on how this data is compiled and the limits of its use.