England Planning Constraints - Flood, Listed, Conservation

Check what planning constraints cover an England postcode or coordinate, from the government's open planning-data service (OGL v3): 223 datasets, with 780,636 flood-risk-zone records, 131,446 listed-building outlines, 104,923 tree-preservation zones, 44,375 ancient woodlands, 20,159 scheduled monuments, 11,156 conservation areas, and more. Counts measured 20 October 2026.

Low cost

From $0.00005 per record, down to $0.00003 at Gold. Pay only for the records you receive.

What you get

mode=datasets (the default run) returns the curated catalogue - one row per dataset with its live entity count and whether it supports a point query.

mode=search returns every constraint whose geometry covers the postcode or coordinate you give.

field	meaning
dataset	constraint layer, e.g. flood-risk-zone
entity, reference, name	dataset identifiers and the entity name
prefix, typology	dataset prefix and whether it is a geography or legal instrument
entryDate, startDate, endDate	dataset record dates
quality	authoritative where the source flags it
organisationEntity	the publishing organisation
latitude, longitude, point	the entity's representative point
entityUrl, datasetUrl	the full entity JSON and the dataset page
documentUrl, documentationUrl	the published evidence document, where present
attributes	every other dataset-specific field, as JSON on entity results (e.g. listed-building grade, flood-risk level); in catalogue mode, the dataset description
totalMatched	total entities matching the point across the queried datasets

Curated datasets

dataset	entities	point query
flood-risk-zone	780,636	yes
listed-building	382,373	no (point layer)
tree	273,075	no (point layer)
listed-building-outline	131,446	yes
tree-preservation-order	129,123	no (legal instrument)
tree-preservation-zone	104,923	yes
ancient-woodland	44,375	yes
brownfield-land	40,116	no (point layer)
scheduled-monument	20,159	yes
conservation-area	11,156	yes
article-4-direction-area	7,578	yes
site-of-special-scientific-interest	4,128	yes
green-belt	181	yes
area-of-outstanding-natural-beauty	34	yes
heritage-coast	32	yes
national-park	10	yes

Search it

• Postcode - postcode="SW1A1AA" (spaces are ignored).
• Coordinates - latitude=51.5, longitude=-0.12.
• One dataset - dataset="flood-risk-zone".

Example inputs

Everything covering one postcode

{ "mode": "search", "postcode": "SW1A1AA" }

Flood risk at a coordinate

{ "mode": "search", "latitude": 51.5, "longitude": -0.12,
  "dataset": "flood-risk-zone" }

Listed-building and conservation-area check

{ "mode": "search", "postcode": "SW1A1AA", "dataset": "conservation-area" }

The catalogue with counts

{ "mode": "datasets" }

Example output

{
 "dataset": "listed-building-outline",
 "entity": "42167304",
 "name": "Buckingham Palace The Mall London SW1A 1AA",
 "reference": "1239087",
 "prefix": "listed-building-outline",
 "typology": "geography",
 "entryDate": "1970-02-05",
 "startDate": "1970-02-05",
 "quality": "authoritative",
 "organisationEntity": "387",
 "latitude": "51.500773",
 "longitude": "-0.142542",
 "point": "POINT (-0.142542 51.500773)",
 "entityUrl": "https://www.planning.data.gov.uk/entity/42167304.json",
 "datasetUrl": "https://www.planning.data.gov.uk/dataset/listed-building-outline",
 "attributes": "{\"listed-building\": \"1239087\"}",
 "totalMatched": 1
}

Notes on the data, from the source

• Constraints, not applications. The planning-data service carries the constraint layers (flood, conservation, listed, Article 4, green belt, TPO and environmental designations) but no planning application records
  • its application count is zero. This actor does not pretend otherwise.
• Point-only layers cannot be searched by point. listed-building, tree, tree-preservation-order and brownfield-land are published without polygon geometry, so the service's point query cannot match them. Their counts are in the catalogue, and asking for one in search mode fails with an explanation rather than an empty result.
• England coverage. The datasets are published by English planning authorities; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own planning portals.
• Geometry is not mirrored. The actor returns the representative point and the entity URL; fetch the entity URL for the full polygon.
• Licence. Open Government Licence v3 - commercial reuse is permitted, with attribution. This is an independent data service, not an official government service.

Data source: planning.data.gov.uk (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government).