Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the Upper Hunter statistical area — covering Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter Shire.
These four figures are deliberately not added together. An application, an approval and a project under construction are often the same building at three points in its life, measured by three different bodies with three different lags. Read them as a sequence, not a total.
What councils and certifiers have formally permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing homes, with New South Wales and Australia for comparison. This is the same activity as the totals view, divided by the size of the area — which is the only fair way to compare a large SA3 with a small one.
Dwelling approvals a year per 1,000 residents, each year divided by that year’s estimated resident population (ABS ERP at 30 June), not by today’s — which matters most in fast-growing areas, where a fixed denominator can understate the early years by half. The most recent periods use the latest published ERP, as the population series runs a year behind approvals. Read it alongside the per-100-homes view: the two differ wherever household size does.
Dwelling units approved each financial year. The dashed line is the five-year average of 96.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.
Detached houses as a share of existing homes, against the share of recent approvals.
Share of each year’s approvals.
The same approvals, measured against the population they have to house.
People added for every new address verified, against the size of an average local household.
A bar longer than the household average means the area gained more residents than its new housing could hold, and the extra had to be absorbed by existing homes.
Dwellings a year: what is currently being approved, against what the 2041 population projection implies.
Implied need assumes the average household stays at today’s 2.7 people. Approvals are not completions, and not every approval is built.
What is being asked for right now — applications collected from council planning portals, before any of it reaches the ABS series above. AreaSearch tracks applications of material scale; routine minor works such as signage and fencing changes are not carried, so these are not counts of every application lodged. 18 of them carry an AreaSearch analyst assessment — look for the Analysed marker in the search below.
Estimated value of applications by development type. This is the clearest single picture of what kind of place Upper Hunter is being asked to become. A further 32 applications sit across 1 smaller category, too few to plot.
As reported by the council. Highlighted rows are applications still in assessment.
27 applications are still marked under assessment but were lodged more than 18 months ago. Councils often leave determined or abandoned applications open in their feeds, so they are counted here but excluded from the live queue above.
A further 284 applications carry no status in the council feed.
Applications on record within each council area that overlaps Upper Hunter. This counts applications inside this statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.
By estimated cost of works, as lodged. Estimates are the applicant’s own figures and are not verified by AreaSearch.
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough to change how Upper Hunter works, ranked by committed value and how close they are to delivery.
Redevelopment of the former Liddell Power Station into the Hunter Energy Hub. Construction of the 500MW/1000MWh Liddell Battery is finished, with the first 250MW phase currently undergoing commissioning. Full…
The Goulburn River Solar Farm is a State Significant Development approved by the NSW Independent Planning Commission and Commonwealth DCCEEW. Developed by Lightsource bp, the project encompasses an estimated…
A master-planned residential community spanning 230 hectares at the eastern gateway of Muswellbrook. The development comprises approximately 1,100 to 1,500 lots across 32 stages, featuring open space, walking…
11 further projects in Upper Hunter are not listed here.
Denotes AI-based impression for illustrative purposes only, not to be taken as
definitive under any circumstances. Please follow links and conduct other
investigations from the project’s source for actual imagery. Developers and
project owners wishing us to use original imagery please Contact
Us and we will do so.
Beyond 2030: a further $509m across 1 project with completion dates further out — mostly precinct-scale programs whose dates are indicative. Kept out of the chart so the years you can act on stay readable.
Estimated value of tracked projects by the year they are due to complete, stacked by how certain they are. The dark band is money already being spent; the pale band is still an intention. Estimates are indicative and mix infrastructure cost with whole-of-precinct development value, so read the shape rather than the totals.
Development applications around Upper Hunter
Loading development applications…
| Lodged | Address | Description | Type | Distance | Status |
|---|
SOURCE: Planning portals and council registers, compiled by AreaSearch. Distance & bearing measured from the suburb midpoint.
Applications and major projects plotted where they are actually proposed, with the 32 projects AreaSearch tracks here on their own tab — filterable by type, delivery stage, area and committed value. To search every application on record rather than this sample, use the section above.
Approvals per 100 existing homes in 2025-26, by statistical area, with the Upper Hunter figure marked. Ranked rather than stacked: rates cannot be added together.
Approvals per 1,000 residents in 2025-26, by statistical area, against each area’s own estimated resident population, with the Upper Hunter figure marked. A small area building hard is invisible in the totals view and obvious here.
Dwelling approvals each financial year, split by the statistical area they fell in. Each column totals the whole Upper Hunter figure from the approvals chart above — SA2s nest exactly inside an SA3, so the two always reconcile. Tap or click an area in the legend to hide it and compare the rest.
Each area below opens a map builder on its own page — a tool for putting a map and a table into a report. Pick the place types you want plotted (schools, supermarkets, medical, child care, transport and the rest of what AreaSearch holds), add development applications as their own layer, drop your own points, then recolour, renumber and export the result as a table or CSV. A this area only toggle clips everything to the boundary you are looking at. Searches are charged against your credit balance — 1 credit per 40 results from AreaSearch data — and setting filters costs nothing until you search. The builder works on one suburb-sized area at a time, which is why it opens per area rather than across the whole of Upper Hunter.
| Local government area | Share of Upper Hunter | Applications on record | Register read to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Muswellbrook | 54% of residents | 446 | September 2026 |
| Upper Hunter Shire | 46% of residents | 342 | September 2026 |
The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring Upper Hunter.
Upper Hunter is Statistical Area Level 3 10604 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 4 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 31,375 residents, +2.6% since the 2021 Census.
| Measure | Source | To |
|---|---|---|
| Dwelling approvals, five-year average | ABS / AreaSearch | July 2026 |
| House share of approvals | ABS / AreaSearch | July 2026 |
| Residents per approval | ABS / AreaSearch | July 2026 |
| Value per approved dwelling | ABS / AreaSearch | July 2026 |
| Commercial work approved | ABS / AreaSearch | July 2026 |
| Verified new addresses since the Census | Address register / AreaSearch | August 2026 |
| Development applications | Council planning portals | September 2026 |
| Major projects | Infrastructure Australia / state agencies / AreaSearch | Ongoing |
Figures on this page are read live from the AreaSearch database each time it loads, so they update as soon as a source does.
The ABS recorded 112 dwelling approvals across Upper Hunter in the 2025-26 financial year, against a five-year average of 96 a year.
AreaSearch tracks 792 development applications of material scale across Upper Hunter — routine minor works such as signage and fencing are not included, so this is not a count of every application lodged, of which 108 remain in assessment. Applications are assessed within the Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter Shire local government areas. The most recent application in our data was lodged in September 2026.
AreaSearch tracks 26 current major projects in Upper Hunter, 7 of them under construction. The largest include Hunter Energy Hub, Goulburn River Solar Farm and Eastbrook Links Estate.
Upper Hunter is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 2 local government areas — Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter Shire. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
On development approvals, Upper Hunter is adding new dwellings more slowly than New South Wales as a whole — 0.33 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.59.
ABS building approvals are published with a lag of roughly four months; this page carries the series to August 2026. Development applications are collected from council planning portals and refresh continuously, with the most recent application here lodged in September 2026. Major project records are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Each section carries its own currency label so the four are never confused.
Development data is provided for general information. Estimated values, dwelling counts and delivery dates come from the lodging or delivering party and are not independently verified by AreaSearch. Confirm anything material with the relevant council or agency before relying on it.