London Borough of Croydon

How Croydon 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 1105 applications tracked Window: Jan 2023 to Mar 2026 8 areas, 8 scheme types
Applications logged
1105
Full, householder and minor resi since Jan 2023
Decided so far
887
288 approved, 599 refused, 50 withdrawn
Approval rate
32%
Under half of decided applications
Typical time to decide
8 weeks
Median determination time across all small sites

Croydon, area by area

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

Croydon Central 105 Norbury & Thornton Heath 242 Addiscombe & Woodside 120 Shirley & Spring Park 41 South Norwood & Crystal Palace 69 South Croydon & Sanderstead 118 Purley & Coulsdon 165 New Addington & Selsdon 27 Approval rate 26% 49%
Spotlight

Croydon Central

Decisions
105
Approved
36
Refused
69
Approval rate
34%
Hover or tap any tile to see that area’s detail.
Tile positions are schematic, not to geographic scale. Each hex represents one of Croydon’s sub-areas as defined in the council’s own planning framework.

Shirley & Spring Park approves 49% of applications. South Croydon & Sanderstead, closer to 26%. Same borough, same policy, 23 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 Croydon, but it's infill that sees the highest approval rate.

Approved Refused Bar length = sample size (max n=378)
Conversion
37%n=378
Demolish & rebuild
30%n=262
End-of-terrace
20%n=49
Mid-terrace
29%n=49
Backland
29%n=48
Extension
31%n=48
Mixed use
10%n=20
Infill
42%n=12
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
Mid-terrace, insertion into the middle of a terrace
Backland, new build on rear gardens or courtyard land
Extension, rear, side or upward additions creating a new unit
Mixed use, ground-floor commercial with homes above
Infill, new build on small pockets of land

Why applications fail in Croydon

Of every hundred reasons cited in refused decisions in Croydon, design quality accounts for the biggest slice at 82%.

Design quality, bulk, massing, appearance 82
Other, mixed reasons 7
Policy, affordable housing, density targets 3
Open space, loss of garden or green space 3
Transport, parking, safety, access 2
Infrastructure, access, parking, drainage 2
Amenity, overlooking, daylight, noise 1
Flood risk 0
Heritage, conservation areas, listed setting 0
Read as: “Of every 100 reasons cited in a refusal, 82 relate to design quality.” A single refusal often names two or more reasons. Based on 1817 reasons extracted from refused decision notices.

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

Is Croydon 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 32% '23 Q1 · 10% · n=29 '23 Q2 · 22% · n=87 '23 Q3 · 31% · n=72 '23 Q4 · 27% · n=94 '24 Q1 · 25% · n=76 '24 Q2 · 31% · n=90 '24 Q3 · 33% · n=73 '24 Q4 · 36% · n=67 '25 Q1 · 48% · n=56 '25 Q2 · 49% · n=51 '25 Q3 · 43% · n=53 '25 Q4 · 32% · n=81 '26 Q1 · 34% · n=53 '23 Q1 '23 Q2 '23 Q3 '23 Q4 '24 Q1 '24 Q2 '24 Q3 '24 Q4 '25 Q1 '25 Q2 '25 Q3 '25 Q4 '26 Q1
Hover any bar or dot for exact quarterly values. The most recent quarter may be partial while pending decisions work through.

Thinking about a specific site?

The dashboard gives you the borough picture. If you have a particular address in mind, we can tell you what the comparable decisions say about your odds, density and capacity.

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Data sources & method

Applications. Sourced from the Greater London Authority (GLA) Planning Datahub and Croydon 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 Site Assessment. See our Terms of Use for full details on how this data is compiled and the limits of its use.