UK Planning & Building Control Applications Scraper

Weekly Building Control and Planning application lists from UK council Idox Public Access portals, normalised into one flat schema across councils — including the Building Control register no other Apify actor covers.

You never pay for a failed run. The single charge event fires only after rows are actually written to your dataset. Empty or errored runs cost $0.

What you get

One row per application, identical schema for every council:

field	meaning
council, council_name, portal_host	which council's register
register_type	building_control or planning
reference	council application reference (stable id)
proposal	description of works as published
address	site address as published
status	status at harvest time
event_type / event_date	list event: deposited (BC) / validated (planning) / decided / …
week_start	week label of the weekly list
key_val	portal key — dedupe across runs on this (or reference)
detail_url	public portal page for the application
harvested_at	UTC harvest timestamp

Deduplicate across runs on key_val + council (or reference + council).

Covered councils (v0.1)

Every portal below was live-verified end-to-end (form → list → rows) on 2026-08-20. Building Control: Leeds, Tameside, Sefton, Gateshead, Walsall, Wirral, Salford, Sheffield, Stockport, Sunderland. Planning: same councils where the planning register is exposed on the same Idox portal.

Request a council by opening an Issue — Idox Public Access portals are template-driven and onboarding is fast.

Input example

{
  "councils": ["leeds"],
  "registers": ["building_control"]
}

Both fields accept arrays; run several councils and registers in one call. Rows from all councils land in one dataset with the identical schema.

Sample output (real run, 2026-08-21)

Run iRqfksouWozaTYFMM — Leeds, building_control, current weekly list (dataset KidqvD1Xkpnnd7xe3, 10 rows):

[
  {
    "council": "leeds",
    "council_name": "Leeds City Council",
    "portal_host": "publicaccess.leeds.gov.uk",
    "register_type": "building_control",
    "reference": "26/03400/DALBN",
    "proposal": "Alterations to remove internal wall/chimney breast and insert steels",
    "address": "4 Nethercliffe Road Guiseley Leeds LS20 9HL",
    "status": "Pending Consideration",
    "event_type": "deposited",
    "event_date": "2026-08-20",
    "week_start": "17 Aug 2026",
    "key_val": "TK2DRUJB3B300",
    "detail_url": "https://publicaccess.leeds.gov.uk/online-applications/buildingControlDetails.do?keyVal=TK2DRUJB3B300&activeTab=summary",
    "harvested_at": "2026-08-21T04:05:42+00:00"
  }
]

Use with the Apify MCP server

Works out of the box with Apify's MCP server (@apify/actors-mcp-server) — scrape planning data straight from Claude, Cursor or any MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@apify/actors-mcp-server",
               "halobartku/uk-planning-building-control-scraper"]
    }
  }
}

Pricing — and why it's $0.02 per application

actor	per-application price	registers
illehius/uk-planning-monitor	$0.050 / application found	planning only
memo23/uk-planning-applications-scraper	$0.010 / result (free PlanIt API wrapper)	planning only
this actor	$0.020 / application-harvested	planning + building control

You are charged once per row delivered — nothing on start, nothing on failure. A weekly single-council run (40–200 rows) costs $0.80–4.00; the same coverage from the $0.05 competitor costs 2.5× more and still misses Building Control entirely. BC rows are the early signal: full plans deposited weeks before the planning application appears.

FAQ

Why Idox portals and not the national planning pipeline? PlanPipe-style national feeds cover planning applications only. Building Control deposits (structural alterations, steel insertions, demolitions) live on each council's Idox Public Access portal — that register is what this actor adds, and why builders/loft companies cannot get it elsewhere.

How fresh is the data? Each run harvests the live weekly list — typically published within a day or two of deposit. Run daily to catch councils that update mid-week.

How do I get only new applications? Deduplicate on key_val + council across runs; event_date lets you filter to the current week.

Can I add my council? Yes — open an Issue with the council name. Any Idox Public Access portal (100+ UK councils run Idox) is a small config addition, verified live before release.

What happens if a portal is down or changes? The run fails loudly with the council named, charges $0, and the next run retries. Partial results are still delivered and only those rows bill.

For AI agents & LLM apps

Compact reference for AI agents calling this actor via the Apify MCP server or the Apify API (actor: halobartku/uk-planning-building-control-scraper).

Purpose: Harvest the weekly Building Control and Planning application lists from UK council Idox Public Access portals — one normalised row per application (council, reference, proposal, site address, status, event type/date, portal link). Building Control deposits are the register no other Apify actor covers.

Minimal input:

{ "councils": ["leeds"], "registers": ["building_control"] }

Output: one row per application — council, council_name, portal_host, register_type (building_control|planning), reference, proposal, address, status, event_type, event_date, week_start, key_val, detail_url, harvested_at.

Behaviors an agent should know:

• Both councils and registers accept arrays; rows from all councils land in one dataset with the identical schema.
• Deduplicate across runs on key_val + council (or reference + council); event_date filters to the current week.
• Supported councils (v0.1): Leeds, Tameside, Sefton, Gateshead, Walsall, Wirral, Salford, Sheffield, Stockport, Sunderland. More on request via the actor's Issues tab.
• A failing portal fails the run loudly with the council named and charges $0; partial results are still delivered and only those rows bill.
• Billing: pay-per-event application-harvested, charged only after rows are written — failed or empty runs cost nothing.

Changelog

0.1.6 — 2026-08-22: pagination fix. The portal's result-count phrase carries an inline </strong> (Showing 1-10</strong> of 76); our old count regex missed it, so multi-page weeks returned only page 1 (Leeds: 10 of 76 rows). Found by independent ground-truth validation, fixed, re-validated 76/76 + 18/18 rows exact vs same-minute portal HTML. If you ran this actor before 2026-08-22, re-run for complete weeks. 0.1 — 2026-08-20: initial public release. 10 councils, both registers, one normalised schema, per-row PAY-PER-EVENT pricing.

SEO keywords

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