UK Planning Applications Scraper & Intelligence API

Track planning applications across 24 UK council portals as clean, consistent JSON. Filter by work type, date and decision status, and get only what's new since your last run. Built for builders, architects, developers, suppliers and AI agents.

Every council listed below was verified against its live portal on 28 July 2026. Coverage claims here are measured, not estimated.

Five-minute quick start

1. Click Try for free.
2. The default input is pre-filled with Leeds, Bradford and York — just press Start.
3. Within a couple of minutes you'll have live applications in the dataset tab, exportable as JSON, CSV or Excel.

No API keys, no council registrations, no scraping to maintain yourself.

Why not just use the free government data?

The official register at planning.data.gov.uk is genuinely open and well structured, and for most lead-generation purposes it is unusable. As of July 2026 its most recent planning application entry dates from September 2025, and it covers roughly four local authorities.

This actor reads council portals directly, so records appear the same day they are validated.

Verified coverage — 24 councils

Region	Councils
Yorkshire	Leeds, Bradford, York, Wakefield, Hull
North East	Northumberland, Durham, North Tyneside, Gateshead
North West	Cheshire West and Chester, Bury, Knowsley
London	Brent, Ealing, Lambeth, Greenwich, Tower Hamlets
Scotland	Glasgow
South West	Plymouth, North Somerset
South East	Adur & Worthing
East	Thurrock, Southend-on-Sea
West Midlands	Solihull

Measured volume: 3,866 applications in 30 days across these councils.

Highest volume: Leeds (500/month), Bradford (433), Northumberland (350), Cheshire West (236), Ealing (227), Glasgow (210), York (187), Lambeth (181).

Presets

Ordered by measured volume, not guesswork.

Preset	Applications/month	Typical buyer
Extensions & loft conversions	~1,185	Builders, architects
Tree works & TPO	~545	Tree surgeons, arborists
New builds & developments	~256	Developers, materials suppliers
Commercial conversions	~182	Fit-out contractors
Renewables & retrofit	~149	Solar and heat pump installers
Approved applications only	—	Anyone wanting decided, not pending
Daily monitor	—	Change-only tracking

Output

One record per application. Every documented field is always present, null when unavailable.

{
  "council": "Gateshead Council",
  "council_id": "gateshead",
  "region": "North East",
  "reference": "DC/26/00586/GPDE",
  "description": "Single storey rear extension measuring 5m long by 4.5m wide",
  "address": "12 Example Road, Chester-le-Street",
  "postcode": "DH3 1BB",
  "received_date": "2026-07-23",
  "validated_date": "2026-07-23",
  "decision_date": null,
  "status": "Registered",
  "decision": null,
  "lead_type": "extension",
  "is_residential": true,
  "is_decided": false,
  "detail_url": "https://public.gateshead.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=...",
  "_first_seen": "2026-07-28T09:12:44.000Z",
  "_last_seen": "2026-07-28T09:12:44.000Z",
  "_record_hash": "a41f..."
}

Field completeness measured across 3,866 live records: reference 100%, address 100%, detail link 100%, validated date 98%, postcode 90%.

Enrichment (included, no extra charge)

• lead_type — extension, loft_conversion, new_build, tree_works, solar, heat_pump, insulation, ev_charging, change_of_use, demolition, advertisement.
• postcode — extracted from the site address so you can filter by travel radius.
• is_residential — separates household work from commercial schemes.
• is_decided — whether the application has been determined.
• _first_seen / _last_seen — how long an application has been tracked across your runs.

Monitor mode (recommended)

Select Daily monitor, or set onlyNew: true, and schedule the actor daily.

The actor remembers every application it has delivered to you and returns only new ones, or ones whose status or decision has changed. You are charged only for what is returned — on a quiet day the run costs you nothing.

This is the difference between buying a list once and having a pipeline.

Use it from anywhere

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("InteractApps/uk-planning-applications-scraper").call(
    run_input={"preset": "extensions_and_lofts",
               "councils": ["leeds", "bradford", "york"],
               "daysBack": 7})
for app in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(app["council"], app["postcode"], app["description"])

AI agent prompt

Run uk-planning-applications-scraper with preset="extensions_and_lofts",
councils=["leeds"], onlyNew=true. Summarise new extension applications
by postcode district and flag any over 100 sqm.

Honest limitations

• 24 councils, not national. There are roughly 400 planning authorities in the UK. The councils above are the ones verified working. Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Camden run Northgate PlanningExplorer, a different system this actor does not yet read.
• These are planning applications, not warm leads. An application tells you a specific property is having specific work done, with an address and a date. It does not include the homeowner's phone number, and nobody has asked to be contacted. Outreach is your job.
• Southend-on-Sea does not publish dates in its results list, so date fields are null for that council.
• Agent and applicant names are not included; they sit on each application's detail page, which this version does not fetch.
• Public data only. No logins, no personal data of private individuals beyond what councils publish on the statutory register.

Pricing and support

$0.08 per application delivered. Platform usage is included — there is no second bill.

You are charged only for applications actually returned. Failed councils, empty result sets and applications filtered out by monitor mode all cost nothing, and maxResults is a hard ceiling so a run can never bill beyond your cap.

For scale: a builder monitoring three councils for extensions pays roughly $13/month. A single shared lead on a trade platform costs £15–60.

Support: message via the Issues tab — responses within 24 hours on weekdays.

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Changelog — v0.1 (28 July 2026): first release. 24 councils verified live; unreachable and Northgate portals excluded rather than listed optimistically.