Send an address or postcode. Get back that property’s full planning history as structured JSON — £0.30 per lookup.
The PlanningLens API is a metered planning data API for the UK, drawing on 3.4M+ real decisions from 295 councils across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, refreshed nightly — every application, decision, date and designation flag the council has published, returned as structured JSON at £0.30 per lookup. Built for surveying platforms, conveyancing tech, proptech CRMs, underwriting and investor tools.
One request, one property, one structured response. Every field below is live in production today.
The UK has no national register of planning decisions. Every local planning authority publishes its own, on its own portal, across a dozen incompatible software systems — which is why no property product has planning history built in. PlanningLens built and maintains the aggregation layer: its own collection infrastructure, run nightly, normalising every portal into one queryable index.
Below is a genuine sample response for a real property in Chorley — the panel a client application renders on the left, and the exact payload it maps from on the right. Every record links back to the council’s own register.
The Mill House, Millwood Close, Withnell, Chorley, PR6 8AR
Discharge of condition 5 (replacement planting scheme), pursuant to 25/01095/FULHH.
View on council record →Certificate of lawfulness for a new window opening to the rear elevation.
View on council record →New retaining wall, following demolition of the existing wall and felling of 6 trees.
View on council record →Felling of trees within a conservation area.
View on council record →Works to protected trees under TPO 3 (Withnell Fold, 2006): tree removal.
View on council record →Height reduction of 1 willow within a conservation area.
View on council record →Sourced council-by-council during the scoping pilot. The same panel carries building-regulations records once proven for Chorley.
{
"query": {
"input": { "postcode": "PR6 8AR", "address": "The Mill House, Millwood Close, Withnell" },
"match": { "matched": true, "method": "postcode", "note": "UPRN-level matching is delivered in the scoping pilot" }
},
"property": {
"address": "The Mill House, Millwood Close, Withnell, Chorley, PR6 8AR",
"postcode": "PR6 8AR",
"local_authority": "Chorley",
"lpa_code": "E07000118"
},
"planning_history": {
"total": 8,
"applications": [
{ "reference": "26/00324/FULHH", "decision_date": "2026-06-08", "application_type": "Householder", "proposal": "New window opening to rear elevation.", "status": "Granted", "decision": "Approved", "source_url": "https://planning.chorley.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=TD8KMOETJ8B00" },
{ "reference": "26/00102/DIS", "decision_date": "2026-05-14", "application_type": "Discharge of Condition(s)", "proposal": "Application to discharge condition 5 (replacement planting scheme) attached to planning permission 25/01095/FULHH.", "status": "Granted", "decision": "Condition(s) discharged", "source_url": "https://planning.chorley.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=T9UFEIETI8W00" },
{ "reference": "26/00101/CLPUD", "decision_date": "2026-03-31", "application_type": "Certificate of Lawfulness (Proposed Use)", "proposal": "Application for a certificate of lawfulness for a new window opening to the rear elevation.", "status": "Refused", "decision": "Refused", "source_url": "https://planning.chorley.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=T9UFEDETI8U00" },
{ "reference": "25/01095/FULHH", "decision_date": "2026-01-21", "application_type": "Householder", "proposal": "Erection of a new retaining wall, following demolition of the existing retaining wall and felling of 6no. existing trees.", "status": "Granted", "decision": "Approved", "source_url": "https://planning.chorley.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=T5QA0LETH2S00" },
{ "reference": "25/00214/TCON", "decision_date": "2025-04-15", "application_type": "Tree Works in Conservation Area", "proposal": "Notification of proposed works to trees within a conservation area, involving the felling of trees in the group.", "status": "No Objections", "decision": "No objection to Tree Works", "source_url": "https://planning.chorley.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=SSNWQJETL6V00" },
{ "reference": "24/00648/TPO", "decision_date": "2024-09-23", "application_type": "Tree Preservation Order", "proposal": "Application for works to protected trees, Chorley BC TPO 3 (Withnell Fold) 2006: tree removal.", "status": "Refused", "decision": "Refuse for Tree Works", "source_url": "https://planning.chorley.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=SHG4LQETIDQ00" },
{ "reference": "24/00649/TCON", "decision_date": "2024-09-17", "application_type": "Tree Works in Conservation Area", "proposal": "Notification of proposed works to trees within a conservation area, involving the felling of 4no. trees.", "status": "Granted", "decision": "Consent for Tree Works", "source_url": "https://planning.chorley.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=SHG4LZETIDS00" },
{ "reference": "21/01299/TCON", "decision_date": "2021-12-15", "application_type": "Tree Works in Conservation Area", "proposal": "Notification of proposed works to a tree within a conservation area, including the height reduction of 1no. willow.", "status": "No Objections", "decision": "No objection to Tree Works", "source_url": "https://planning.chorley.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=R206UFET09U00" }
]
},
"designations": {
"tree_preservation_order": {
"present": true,
"reference": "TPO 3 (Withnell Fold), 2006",
"source": "flagged from application 24/00648/TPO"
},
"conservation_area": {
"present": true,
"name": "Withnell Fold",
"source": "flagged from conservation-area tree notifications"
}
},
"building_regulations": {
"status": "available_via_pilot",
"records": [],
"note": "building control records are sourced per council during the scoping pilot"
},
"meta": {
"source": "PlanningLens",
"councils_indexed": 295,
"data_current_as_of": "2026-07-09"
}
}
Everything on the left is a field on the right. The panel renders straight from this response. Planning history and the designation flags are live data from Chorley, the most recent decided just days ago; building control is the pilot piece — same envelope, populated once a source is proven per council. Field set: reference, date, proposal, status / decision, source link — everything a property panel needs.
Metered, published, and the same for everyone.
One address or postcode in, one structured response out. Billed monthly on actual usage above the floor.
A floor that keeps the service sustainable, with per-lookup billing above it. Non-exclusive, no long contract.
Fixed fee. Your real addresses run through the pipeline to validate match quality — including UPRN-level matching — before any larger commitment.
Volume pricing at sustained scale by agreement. Access is licensed per customer; the underlying database is not for sale.
Email 20 real addresses that are representative of what your users search. They go through the production pipeline and you get the actual JSON back — usually within a day. If the match quality holds on your data, we talk pilot.
Email a test batch →or write directly to hello@planninglens.co.uk
Yes — the PlanningLens API. Send an address or postcode and it returns that property’s planning application history, decisions, dates and designation flags as structured JSON, from an index of 3,400,000+ real decisions across 295 UK councils, refreshed nightly. Pricing is published openly at £0.30 per lookup.
£0.30 per property, with a monthly minimum of £350–£500 and per-lookup billing above it. A typical integrated customer running 1,000–1,500 lookups a month at launch sits at the floor; sustained higher volumes are priced by agreement.
By postcode and address against council planning records, the same resolution the free postcode checker uses. UPRN-level matching is part of the scoping pilot, where it’s validated against your real address list.
Public council planning registers, collected and normalised nightly by PlanningLens’s own infrastructure. Every application in a response carries a link to the council’s original record, so anything can be verified at source.
Not in the live product. The response carries a building_regulations envelope that is populated once a source is proven for each council during the pilot — shown honestly as pilot-scoped, never faked as live.