What we can't tell you · Fragmented
How many new mosques (or places of worship of any religion) are completed each year?
Fragmented The data exists but is held by many authorities separately, with no national compilation; coverage has to be tracked authority by authority.
Why
No official series counts places of worship completed or opened. Each local planning authority holds its own applications and decisions, with the use class (F1(f), place of worship) on the application form; MHCLG's quarterly "Planning applications in England" receives only aggregate returns classified by scale and broad type, with no place-of-worship category. The MHCLG Planning Data platform's planning-application dataset held records from 6 organisations at its last collection (17 September 2025) and is marked as not ready for use. The General Register Office list of places recorded under the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855 (29,339 rows, June 2026) has no date column, though successive editions can be compared.
What is known
What is not known
- Completions or openings of places of worship by year, religion or authority
- Church of England and Church in Wales buildings (not certifiable under the 1855 Act)
- Buildings that never certify (certification is voluntary except for marriage registration and rating exemption)
Who holds the data
- Local planning authorities in England and Wales (planning registers, building control)
- General Register Office (HM Passport Office)
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Planning Data platform)
Would a Freedom of Information request help?
Possibly. Each planning authority holds applications with use class F1(f) and can list them by year; MHCLG holds no central figure and would answer "not held". GRO may hold a certification date that is not in the published list.
Privacy and disclosure restrictions
Planning and certification records are public at address level; no suppression applies, but a count of applications is not a count of buildings opened.
Official sources checked
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/places-of-worship-registered-for-marriage
- https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/planning-applications-in-england-january-to-march-2026/planning-applications-in-england-january-to-march-2026-statistical-release
- https://www.planning.data.gov.uk/dataset/planning-application
- https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rating-manual-section-2-maintaining-the-rating-list/part-6-exemptions-part-b-places-of-public-religious-worship
Last reviewed 2026-09-02. Availability changes; if a publication now answers this question, challenge the classification below.