Longford planning permission: how often it is granted, and how long it takes

How Longford compares with the other councils

Refusals are more common in Longford than in most councils. It ranks 27th of 30 on the share granted, 7 points below the median council (90%). A typical decision comes faster than at the median council: 49 days against 55, the shortest median wait of any council. Few files drag on: nine in ten decisions came within 177 days, against 209 days at the median council.

The register records a request for further information on 36% of all the decisions it records, in line with the median council (39%). The register flags only 1 of Longford's decisions as a one-off house, too few to compare with other applications.

The number of applications has held steady: 302 in 2019 and 288 in 2025. The busiest full year was 2021, with 360 applications; 20 of the 31 councils peaked in that year.

What Longford reported for 2025

Longford has the second-lowest category total in the returns, 207, and the fewest dwelling applications, 108. The rest of its return is unusual: 49 entries under other functional categories and 30 for farm buildings, against 10 commercial premises. Its refusals, 26 in all, were nearly all houses (21). The council ruled 99 applications invalid. Industrial sites and public buildings come to 4 each, social-use buildings to 2. Of the refusals, 4 fell in other functional categories, the joint sixth-highest count on that line, and 147 applications were decided within 8 weeks. Small does not mean slow, as the register's median wait above shows. Its share granted, though, is below the median council's. Longford's other functional count is the eighth-highest in the returns. Filings slipped from 313 in 2024 to 288 in 2025. Its 280 decisions in the register make Longford one of the smallest planning authorities, ahead only of Leitrim.

These figures come from each council's annual return to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage: applications received in 2025, decisions to refuse and other measures, published under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. An application that fits several categories is counted in each, so the categories do not add up to a number of applications, and the Department notes that councils may have read its guidance in slightly different ways.

Following an application in Longford

In the national register, Longford applications link to their files on eplanning.ie/LongfordCC.