UK Planning Applications Search — Council Portals

UK Planning Applications Search finds planning applications on supported UK council planning portals and returns each application's reference, proposal, site address, council, nation, status, type, received, validated and decision dates, and a link to the public council record. It covers Cardiff, Edinburgh, Highland, Southampton and the Northern Ireland public register, plus England's national planning datasets, and costs USD 10 per 1,000 records on the FREE tier (USD 0.01 each) plus a USD 0.01 start fee per run.

It is built for solar and home-improvement installers, developers, land and property researchers, and planning consultants. It is not a search of every UK council.

How do I search council planning applications?

Choose council presets and a search term. The term can be a keyword, an address, a postcode or an application reference. The prefilled run searches four councils for solar:

{
  "source": "council-portals",
  "councils": ["cardiff", "edinburgh", "southampton", "northern-ireland"],
  "query": "solar",
  "maxResults": 20
}

The Actor takes one matching application from each council in turn, so the default run returns up to five per council. On 2026-10-26 it returned 20 applications (five each from Cardiff, Edinburgh, Southampton and Northern Ireland) in about 170 seconds.

To look up one application, select its council and use the reference as the query:

{ "source": "council-portals", "councils": ["northern-ireland"], "query": "LA07/2026/1284/F", "maxResults": 1 }

Which UK councils does it cover?

Preset	Nation	Coverage
cardiff	Wales	Cardiff Council planning portal
edinburgh	Scotland	City of Edinburgh Council planning portal
highland	Scotland	Highland Council planning portal
southampton	England	Southampton City Council planning portal
northern-ireland	Northern Ireland	Public planning register for ten councils and DfI (Mid Ulster is not included); authority names the council

You can add up to 10 more councils that use the same Idox Public Access system: pass the portal root in portals, for example [{"url":"https://wam.highland.gov.uk/wam/","nation":"Scotland","authority":"Highland Council"}]. Custom roots must be public HTTPS .gov.uk addresses ending in /. Councils on other portal software are not supported. You can also pass up to 20 Idox applicationDetails.do?keyVal=... links in startUrls to read those applications directly.

Can I search England's national planning data and constraints?

Yes. Set source to planning-data and clear query (the Console prefill solar is rejected in this mode). Then choose dataset slugs such as planning-application, listed-building, conservation-area, green-belt, flood-risk-zone, article-4-direction-area or tree-preservation-zone, and filter by one location method: postcodeOrUprn, a latitude/longitude pair, or geometryWkt.

{
  "source": "planning-data",
  "query": "",
  "datasets": ["conservation-area"],
  "latitude": 51.5074,
  "longitude": -0.1278,
  "maxResults": 20
}

reference and organisationEntity (for example 26 for Adur) narrow national results further. National coverage varies by authority and is England only.

Input	Default	Notes
source	council-portals	Or planning-data for England national datasets
councils	four presets	Up to 5 of the presets above
query	solar	Keyword, address, postcode or reference. Council mode only
startDate / endDate	empty	Inclusive received (or validated, see below) or entity start date. Undated records are excluded when set
maxResults	20	1–1,000 records per run
responseFormat	detailed	concise drops polygon geometry
maxPages / maxRequests / maxRuntimeSecs	20 / 200 / 260	Per-source pages, total requests and runtime budget
pageSize / requestDelayMs	20 / 500	National and NI page size; pause between requests (council portals use at least 2 seconds)

Each response is capped at 5 MB and each run at 20 MB of downloads. When a budget runs out, the Actor keeps the records it already saved and reports the stop reason.

What data does it return?

Field	What it means
reference	Council or national planning reference
description	The proposal text
address	Site address
authority / nation	Council and UK nation
applicationStatus / applicationType	Status and type as the register shows them
startDate / validatedDate / decisionDate	Received (or entity start), validated and decision dates. Where a council publishes no received date, startDate is the validated date
planningDecision / planningDecisionType	Decision and route, where published
recordType / dataset / entityId / typology / name	Application, constraint or entity classification and national IDs
developmentClassification / organisationEntity / endDate / entryDate	National dataset fields
geometryWkt / pointWkt	National polygon and point (polygon omitted in concise)
documentationUrl / sourceUrl	Public council record or national source page
sourceSystem / retrievedAt / warnings	Source adapter, UTC time and data-quality notes

Fields a source does not publish are null. Edinburgh and Southampton publish a validated date but no received date, so their startDate holds the validated date, the record's warnings say so, and date filters include their applications. applicationType was filled for Northern Ireland only.

The OUTPUT record gives the outcome (SUCCEEDED, PARTIAL, EMPTY, BLOCKED, LIMIT, REJECTED or FAILED), records saved, charged events, requests, per-council results, warnings and the stop reason. Read it after every run: a council that failed or blocked leaves the search incomplete.

When should you use it, and when not?

Use it to:

• find new solar, extension or change-of-use applications in the covered councils for sales outreach;
• check a site's planning permission history in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Highland, Southampton or Northern Ireland;
• pull conservation areas, listed buildings or other constraints around an England location.

Do not use it for:

• councils outside the list and not on Idox: use the council's own portal;
• England national data only, without council portals: Planning Permission UK Scraper — Applications & Constraints is built for that source;
• house sale prices: use UK Land Registry Prices Scraper;
• documents, drawings, comments or applicant contact details, which it never collects.

How do I run it from code?

Call the Actor with the id muhammadafzal/planning-permission-uk-scraper-candidate.

JavaScript (apify-client):

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('muhammadafzal/planning-permission-uk-scraper-candidate').call({
  source: 'council-portals',
  councils: ['edinburgh'],
  query: 'heat pump',
  maxResults: 10,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items.map((i) => [i.reference, i.applicationStatus, i.address]));

Python (apify-client):

import os
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run = client.actor("muhammadafzal/planning-permission-uk-scraper-candidate").call(
    run_input={"source": "council-portals", "councils": ["northern-ireland"], "query": "solar", "maxResults": 25},
)
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item["authority"], item["reference"], item["description"][:80])

Use it from an AI assistant

UK Planning Applications Search works from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client through Apify's MCP server. Add https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=muhammadafzal/planning-permission-uk-scraper-candidate as a server, then ask, for example: "Find five recent solar panel planning applications in Cardiff and give me the reference, address and status." The agent sees the input schema and the price per record before it runs.

What does the output look like?

Two records from the default run on 2026-10-26:

[
  {
    "sourceSystem": "ni-register",
    "nation": "Northern Ireland",
    "authority": "Newry, Mourne and Down District Council",
    "applicationStatus": "Valid",
    "applicationType": "Full",
    "validatedDate": null,
    "recordType": "planning-application",
    "entityId": null,
    "dataset": "planning-application",
    "reference": "LA07/2026/1284/F",
    "description": "Storage building for cars, pickup truck, tractor, and associated garden machinery and a sailing boat, with roof mounted solar panels. (amended description)",
    "address": "20 Greenpark Road, Newry BT34 3EZ",
    "startDate": "2026-10-17",
    "decisionDate": null,
    "planningDecision": null,
    "geometryWkt": null,
    "documentationUrl": "https://planningregister.planningsystemni.gov.uk/application/713943",
    "sourceUrl": "https://planningregister.planningsystemni.gov.uk/application/713943",
    "retrievedAt": "2026-10-26T07:22:56.192Z",
    "warnings": []
  },
  {
    "sourceSystem": "idox",
    "nation": "Wales",
    "authority": "Cardiff Council",
    "applicationStatus": "Registered",
    "applicationType": null,
    "validatedDate": "2026-10-12",
    "recordType": "planning-application",
    "reference": "26/02146/HSE",
    "description": "Erection of a double storey side extension with solar panels on the existing & proposed roof",
    "address": "5 Heol Dyfed Heath Cardiff CF14 4PN",
    "startDate": "2026-10-12",
    "documentationUrl": "https://www.cardiffidoxcloud.wales/publicaccess/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=TMSH8MECGZU00&activeTab=summary",
    "retrievedAt": "2026-10-26T07:21:44.411Z",
    "warnings": []
  }
]

Items are shortened; every record carries the full field set.

How much does a UK planning application search cost? Pricing

You pay per planning record saved plus a start fee. Apify platform usage is included. Each record is saved first and then charged once. A search with no match pays only the start fee.

Event (USD)	FREE	BRONZE	SILVER	GOLD, PLATINUM, DIAMOND
Planning record delivered	0.01	0.00975	0.0095	0.008
Actor start, per started GB of allocated memory	0.01	0.00975	0.0095	0.008

The default memory is 256 MB, so each run has one start event.

• Default 20 records, FREE tier: USD 0.01 + 20 × 0.01 = USD 0.21.
• 100 records, GOLD tier: USD 0.008 + 100 × 0.008 = USD 0.808.

FAQ

Does it cover every UK council?

No. It covers the five presets, any Idox Public Access council you add by URL, and England's national planning datasets.

Can I search by postcode?

In council mode, put the postcode in query; the portal decides how it matches. In national mode, use postcodeOrUprn.

Does it download planning documents or drawings?

No. It returns the application summary and a link to the council record.

How current is the data?

Each run reads the live council registers, so new applications appear as soon as the council publishes them.

What if a council portal is down or blocks access?

Other councils continue. The failed council is marked FAILED or BLOCKED in OUTPUT, and the run is reported as PARTIAL when other councils returned data.

Is planning data free to reuse?

Council registers are public, but reuse terms differ. National Planning Data records may be under the Open Government Licence where stated. Check each source before republishing.

Related Actors

• Planning Permission UK Scraper — Applications & Constraints: England national applications and constraints with spatial filters.
• UK Land Registry Prices Scraper: official sale prices for England and Wales.
• Building Permits Scraper: Contractor Leads: US building permits with project values.
• NYC Property Sales Scraper and NJ Property Tax Records: official US property records.

Legal and compliance note

The Actor collects public application metadata and links, not documents, drawings, comments or applicant contacts. Follow each council's terms and UK data-protection law when you store or use addresses. A search with no results does not prove a site has no planning history. The Actor does not bypass logins or CAPTCHAs and is not affiliated with any council, the UK governments or portal providers.

Last verified: 2026-10-27