Dorset

Dorset planning data

24,117 planning applications from Dorset. Ask questions about them in plain English from ChatGPT or Claude — no coding, about two minutes to set up — or pull them straight into your own software. 14 pieces of information are filled in on at least 90% of records.

24,117

Applications

—

Enforcement notices

1,893

Appeals

2023–2026

Date range

We're still loading this council's older records.

We don't yet have Dorset's full history back to 2023 — it's loading now. The figures below cover what we already hold, so treat them as a minimum rather than the full picture. Alerts for new day-to-day changes start once loading is complete.

What Dorset decides

Dorset has approved 89.26% of the 17,571 applications it has decided since January 2023. Across the 225 councils with a comparable caseload the range is 71.37% to 99.14%, so this is at or above the middle of the pack (89.18%).

89.26%

Approved, of 17,571 decided

Decision times can't be measured here — Dorset doesn't publish both a received and a decision date on enough records. The nationwide range across councils that do is 31 to 299 days.

What it mostly decides

The mix of application types Dorset handles — useful for telling whether your kind of application is routine here or unusual.

Application type	Applications	Share
Tree	8,610	35.7%
Householder	5,018	20.8%
Full	3,476	14.4%
Listed building	2,096	8.7%
Other	1,735	7.2%

How approval rates and decision times vary across the country →

What Dorset actually fills in

A "field" is one piece of information on an application — the decision date, the applicant's name, the address. Councils fill these in inconsistently, so this table measures how often Dorset actually provides each one, across all 24,117 records. Anything listed as reliable you can count on; anything lower, check the council's own record before relying on it.

Once this data is connected to ChatGPT or Claude you can just ask "what information does Dorset actually fill in?" and get these same numbers back. How to connect →

Reliable — 90% or more of records

Information	Records with it	Coverage
Address `address`	24,117	100.0%
Application type `application_type`	24,111	100.0%
Description of the works `description`	24,115	100.0%
Council reference `reference`	24,117	100.0%
Status `status`	24,111	100.0%
Case officer `case_officer`	24,091	99.9%
Map coordinates (easting) `easting`	24,096	99.9%
Map coordinates (northing) `northing`	24,096	99.9%
Ward `ward`	24,103	99.9%
Status (standardised wording) `status_normalized`	23,757	98.5%
Decision date `decision_date`	23,240	96.4%
Decision `decision`	23,230	96.3%
Postcode `postcode`	22,535	93.4%
Decision (standardised wording) `decision_normalized`	22,076	91.5%

Partial — use with care

Information	Records with it	Coverage
Who decided it (officer or committee) `decision_level`	19,443	80.6%

Rarely or never published

Information	Records with it	Coverage
Agent's name `agent_name`	1,769	7.3%
Applicant's name `applicant_name`	1,764	7.3%
Appeal decision `appeal_decision`	351	1.5%
Appeal decision (standardised wording) `appeal_decision_normalized`	351	1.5%
Standardised type `standard_type`	0	0.0%

Not published by this council

Dorset's portal has been verified not to publish these fields at all — different from a field that exists but is rarely filled in.

Agent's company Agent's email Agent's phone Alternative reference Type of development Officer's recommendation Date received

Get this data

Ask it in ChatGPT or Claude

Connect it once with your email address, then ask questions like "which extensions were refused in Dorset last year?" or "what's the planning history of this address?" — no coding, about two minutes to set up. Setup guide →

Or call it from your own code

curl -H "X-Api-Key: pk_..." \
  "https://ukplanningapi.co.uk/v1/applications?council_id=81584&limit=5"

Council id for Dorset is 81584. Full API reference for developers →

Get free access to Dorset data

500 lookups a month, free. No card, no password — we email you a sign-in link and you're in.