Use this article to track permit submissions, approval rates and time to decision for any local government area (LGA), compare that activity against other LGAs across Australia, and spot which suburbs and permit categories are driving the numbers.
Who can access permit statistics?
Full access to Planning Permit Statistics — the control bar, Compare, summary cards, all charts, Top Suburbs and Permit Density — is available on the advanced and enterprise plans.
On the standard plan, this view is limited to two counts instead:
New Permits — the number of new permit submissions, shown for the last 7 days and the last 30 days.
Permit Decisions — the number of permits decided, shown for the last 7 days and the last 30 days.
Upgrade today to get full access to your specific LGA’s planning permits.
Opening Planning Permit Insights for an LGA
Select Planning Permits/DAs (DAs, or Development Applications) from the left-hand panel.
Click on an LGA on the map, or search for one.
Open the Insights tab in the LGA panel. The drawer header shows the LGA name (e.g. Melton City, Vic) with a close button in the top right.
Filtering your data
A control bar at the top of the drawer controls every card and chart below it:
Date Range — quick-select 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 1 year, 3 years or set a custom range.
Interval — group the charts by day, week, month or year.
Categories — filter to specific permit types. This is a multi-select, so check as many categories as you need, or leave them all checked to see everything. The available categories are:
Alterations
Change of use
Consolidation
Demolition
Extension/Addition
Liquor Licence
New Building – Non-residential
New Dwelling
Other
Signage/Advertising
Site Works
Subdivision
Telecommunications
Vegetation removal
Waiving of parking requirement
Changing any of these three controls refreshes every card and chart in the drawer to match your selection.
Comparing LGAs
Click Compare to benchmark your primary LGA against up to four other LGAs (five in total), anywhere in Australia. Search for each LGA in the dropdown menu and check it to add it to the comparison — each one is assigned its own colour, shown consistently across every chart in Planning Permit Insights. Remove an LGA from the comparison at any time using the X next to its name.
Summary cards
Three cards at the top summarise the selected period, each with a sparkline and a period-on-period change indicator:
Submissions — total number of permit applications lodged.
Approval Rate — percentage of decided applications that were approved.
Median Time to Decision — the median number of days from submission to decision.
Charts
Below the summary cards, the following sections expand into charts. All of them respect your date range, interval and category filters, and overlay any LGAs you've added to Compare.
New Submissions — permit applications lodged per period, plotted over time.
Outcomes — permits broken out into Approved, Rejected and Other, plotted over time.
Approval Rate — approval rate trend over time.
Time to Decision (Trend) — median and average time to decision over time, so you can see whether decisions are speeding up or slowing down.
Time to Decision (Distribution) — for the selected period, a range chart per LGA showing the P25–P75 spread (the range between the 25th and 75th percentile), median and average number of days to a decision.
Hover over any point on a chart to see the exact values for that period, broken out by LGA.
Top Suburbs
A ranked list of the suburbs within the LGA with the most permit submissions in the selected period, so you can quickly spot where activity is concentrated.
Permit Density vs State
Shows the LGA's permits per 1,000 dwellings against the Victoria state average, with a HIGH/LOW classification and the percentage difference — useful for gauging whether an LGA is unusually active relative to its size.
Quick Tips when Using Permit Statistics
Use Compare to check whether a slow approval rate or long time to decision is specific to one LGA or a broader regional trend.
Narrow to a single category (e.g. New Dwelling) before comparing LGAs if you want a like-for-like view — mixing categories with very different approval timelines (e.g. Liquor Licence vs New Dwelling) can skew the picture.
Switch the interval to week or day for a granular read on recent activity, or year for a long-range trend when using the 3-year range.
Need more help? Reach out via in-app support.