Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the West Pilbara statistical area — covering Karratha, Ashburton and Exmouth and 1 more.
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 Western Australia 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 139.
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 3.8 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.
AreaSearch reads applications directly from each council’s planning register. West Pilbara is not yet covered evenly. Ashburton (25% of residents) — nothing lodged since December 2024. That council is under-represented in every count and chart below.
As reported by the council. Highlighted rows are applications still in assessment.
Applications on record within each council area that overlaps West Pilbara. This counts applications inside this statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough to change how West Pilbara works, ranked by committed value and how close they are to delivery.
Ongoing sustaining capital program by Rio Tinto to maintain and enhance output across the Greater Tom Price hub, including the Western Turner Syncline Phase 2 (WTS2) project. The $1 billion AUD investment…
Fortescue's Pilbara Green Grid is a large-scale, off-grid renewable energy program to eliminate fossil fuels and achieve Real Zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions across its Pilbara iron ore operations. Originally…
Brockman Syncline 1 (BS1) is a greenfield satellite mine development located within the Greater Brockman Hub. The project includes a primary crushing facility, a 7.9km overland conveyor system, and production…
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.
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 West Pilbara
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 20 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.
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 West Pilbara.
| Local government area | Share of West Pilbara | Applications on record | Register read to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Karratha | 75% of residents | 13 | July 2025 |
| Ashburton | 25% of residents | 4 | December 2024 |
| Exmouth | 0.0% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Port Hedland | 0.0% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring West Pilbara.
West Pilbara is Statistical Area Level 3 51003 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 3 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 33,764 residents, +14.1% since the 2021 Census.
| Measure | Source | To |
|---|---|---|
| Dwelling approvals, five-year average | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| House share of approvals | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Residents per approval | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Value per approved dwelling | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Commercial work approved | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Verified new addresses since the Census | Address register / AreaSearch | May 2026 |
| Development applications | Council planning portals | July 2025 |
| 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 290 dwelling approvals across West Pilbara in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 139 a year.
AreaSearch tracks 17 development applications of material scale across West Pilbara — routine minor works such as signage and fencing are not included, so this is not a count of every application lodged. Applications are assessed within the Karratha, Ashburton and Exmouth local government areas. The most recent application in our data was lodged in July 2025.
AreaSearch tracks 14 current major projects in West Pilbara, 10 of them under construction. The largest include Greater Tom Price Operations Sustaining Capital, Fortescue Pilbara Green Grid (Real Zero Decarbonisation Program) and Brockman Syncline 1 Iron Ore Project.
West Pilbara is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 4 local government areas — Karratha, Ashburton, Exmouth and Port Hedland. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
On development approvals, West Pilbara is adding new dwellings more slowly than Western Australia as a whole — 0.54 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.80.
ABS building approvals are published with a lag of roughly four months; this page carries the series to June 2026. Development applications are collected from council planning portals and refresh continuously, with the most recent application here lodged in July 2025. 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.