Domino's Pizza blames planning delays for slow UK shop openings
Delays setting up electricity and gas connections, coupled with more general planning hold-ups, have cost 'a bunch of stores this year', Andrew Rennie said, adding that although the new outlets would 'probably still open', it could be 'six months later than we expected'.
The Labour government has placed freeing up the planning system at the heart of its plans to kick-start economic growth in the UK amid pressure from a range of industries.
• What is green belt land? Labour's planning reform explained
In March the Planning and Infrastructure Bill stripped councillors of the power to block the lion's share of new building schemes, excluding the most contentious. Ministers recently loosened up planning rules for new cafés, bars and music venue openings and are looking at reforms intended to bring down long delays in securing grid connections.
Rennie, 57, said that while he 'applaud[s] them for cutting red tape', he had not seen 'any evidence' yet of a freer planning system. 'I'm hoping that it's going to flow through soon, but at this stage I would say that the delays are still as prevalent as they have been for a while. That's frustrating.'
The Domino's lifer joins a growing number of retail bosses frustrated by the sluggish pace of UK planning and its effect on company expansion.
Lord Wolfson of Aspley Guise, the boss of Next, called for an overhaul of planning rules in December 2023 as he said it had been a 'constant battle' over the past 30 years to build new shops in the right places. In June, Giles Hurley, the boss of the UK arm of Aldi, the German discounter, said the planning process had become 'more convoluted, more complex', while echoing Wolfson's concerns over shop launches.
Domino's is eyeing up a target of 2,000 stores in the UK and Ireland by 2033, a goal that would require more than 600 openings. According to its most recent half-year report, only 11 new stores with nine new franchise partners have opened in 2025, a lower-than-expected figure that was partly influenced by tax rises and rising employment costs, twin headwinds that are proving particularly problematic for its franchisees.
Domino's expects new store openings in 2025 to be in the mid-twenties, with a 'healthy pipeline' moving into 2026. It has increasingly been targeting smaller address counts with less competition, opening about 20 stores since 2024 in areas with fewer than 10,000 addresses.
Profit at the FTSE 250 group dropped on Tuesday as it warned that uncertainty over whether the chancellor would raise taxes this autumn had spooked customers. Shares fell by as much as 20 per cent during the day before closing down 17.6 per cent at 202¾p.
Domino's Pizza Group, which runs the Domino's franchise in the UK, has 1,381 stores across the UK and Ireland, 95 per cent of which are operated through franchise agreements. Its slice of the UK pizza takeaway market has risen by 5.6 percentage points to 53.7 per cent this year.
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