Some 90% of people believe local authority level planning procedures are failing to address the UK’s lack of affordable housing.

Council planning processes were also labelled difficult to understand and lacking transparency by 76% of those questioned in the damning survey.

A further 88% said processes were inefficient and lacked timely completion, while 77% said planning decision makers needed to do more to seek out the opinions of the local community.

More than two thirds of those questioned also said local communities were not given enough opportunities to provide input on planning matters.

Bureaucracy within local councils, followed by a lack of resources and expertise plus protracted paperwork, are the main reasons planning processes are flawed, those surveyed said.

Searchland, which carried out the survey of 1,039 people, said planning processes should be modernised, with more work done outside of the public sector.

Mitchell Fasanya, co-founder and CEO of Searchland, said more preparation work was needed ‘outside of the bureaucracy of the public sector’ to help things run more efficiently.

“When asked for their opinion, the people of the UK have been damning of the lame planning processes that should have been improved and modernised a long time ago,” said Fasanya.

“One can’t, however, place all of the blame on councils alone; many of them do gallant work with insufficient resources.

“But today there are resources and tools outside of the bureaucracy of the public sector that can help people source and analyse land plots and planning history to be as prepared as possible for commencing the council planning application and approval process.

“This preparation can help the process be completed more efficiently and at greater speed,” added Fasanya.