Is there a free UK planning applications API?

Yes. PlanWire has a free tier with 25 requests a day and no card required for evaluating the API shape. Paid plans add production access across PlanWire's 375 live-LPA coverage. The government's planning.data.gov.uk is also free and covers England only, without per-record source links or freshness checks.

How many UK planning applications does the API cover?

17.6 million current and historical applications and decisions, drawn from PlanWire's 375 live-LPA coverage across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

How often is UK planning application data updated?

Sources are monitored continuously and every record carries a freshness check against the council portal it came from, so you can see when that specific source was last confirmed rather than relying on a single site-wide refresh claim.

Can I verify where a planning record came from?

Every record includes a direct link to the originating council portal page. That means any figure you show a customer can be traced to the authority that published it, which is the difference between a planning dataset and a planning citation.

Why pay when free planning feeds exist?

Free feeds are real and worth using if you need one council or England-only coverage. They differ in three ways: coverage of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; a single normalised schema across councils that publish differently; and monitoring, so a source that silently stops publishing is detected rather than quietly returning nothing.

Planning data infrastructure

The monitored UK planning applications API.

Search current and historical planning applications and decisions from every UK council through one API, with direct source links, freshness checks, webhooks, flood risk and market evidence.

Get API key Read API docs

Direct council portals Freshness monitoring Webhooks & enrichment

Monitored source preview

source health / search / webhooks

API preview

382

active source records

JSON

responses

Search by area

postcode, radius, council

Normalize messy records

dates, status, source links

Send product alerts

signed webhook delivery

example record

Responses include reference, council, address, description, dates, coordinates, status, market evidence, and a link back to the public source.

Planning applications API

Build with council planning records, decisions, source links and spatial search.

Planning alerts API

Send watch-area updates from new applications, changed records and decisions.

Proptech planning API

Power maps, CRMs, due-diligence tools and customer monitoring workflows.

Commercial workflows

Layer planning activity with flood risk, sold prices, and decision/date context.

Comparing providers?

Shortlist PlanWire against the options buyers already know.

planning.data.gov.uk alternative

When the free official platform is useful, but your product also needs monitoring, source links and webhooks.

Searchland alternative

For teams that want a planning applications API rather than a site-sourcing workspace.

Glenigan alternative

Self-serve API access, public docs and clear pricing before a sales conversation.

Barbour ABI alternative

Source-backed planning records for products and data teams, with a free sandbox.

18.3M+

applications indexed

382

active sources monitored

Source

links and health checks

Webhooks

signed product delivery

Why pay when free feeds exist?

The product layer on top of fragmented public planning data.

Planning data is public, but production workflows break on partial coverage, stale councils, inconsistent portal formats, and missing operational signals. PlanWire monitors direct sources, normalises records, and shows when a feed can be trusted.

Direct source monitoring

We track public council portals and official datasets, then expose source links and health context for audit trails.

Freshness visibility

Operational checks flag stale, blocked, and failed sources so teams are not blindly trusting a silent feed.

Enrichment built in

Single-application responses can include flood risk, sold-price market evidence, decision/date context, and nearby planning context.

Product-ready delivery

Spatial search, keyword search, pagination, and signed webhooks are designed for products, CRMs, and data platforms.

API surface

One planning applications API, the same shape across every council.

Filters go in query params, auth goes in a header, and responses use the same data/meta pattern across search, nearby lookup, council coverage, and webhook setup.

GET/v1/applications

GET/v1/applications/nearby

GET/v1/councils

POST/v1/webhooks

Pricing

Start free. Upgrade when planning data becomes operational.

The free plan is for testing API shape and sample records. Paid plans add live planning data, production request limits, webhooks, change events, and decision outcomes.

Free

Evaluate the API

£0

No card required

25 requests per day

Sample application records

Limited council preview

Create free key

Developer

Build and launch

£49/mo +VAT

2-day trial for new accounts

1,000 requests per day

Live and historic data, decisions and source evidence

One signed webhook, scoped to a council or postcode area

Start Developer trial

Recommended for production

Production

Products, CRMs and monitoring

£199/mo +VAT

2-day trial for new accounts

10,000 requests per day

Decisions, freshness and source evidence

100 signed webhooks, including nationwide coverage

Start Production trial

Business

High-volume commercial workflows

£499/mo +VAT

Paid from signup

50,000 requests per day

Highest volume, with priority on coverage fixes

Unlimited nationwide webhooks and priority fixes

Choose Business

Enterprise

Custom coverage, SLA and procurement

Dedicated onboarding, contractual commitments and a usage model designed around your production workload.

Talk to us

Monthly billing. Prices exclude VAT; UK customers are charged VAT at the prevailing rate, and EU businesses with a valid VAT number are reverse-charged. Existing subscribers keep their current price. Developer and Production trials are available once per new account.

Use cases

Planning infrastructure for commercial workflows.

Use PlanWire when free feeds are not enough: source-backed records, monitoring, enrichment, and delivery into the products your customers already use.

CRMs

Route new applications and source-backed status updates into sales workflows.

GIS and mapping

Layer current and historic planning records with normalized coordinates and source links.

Product alerts

Watch areas, postcodes, councils, and keywords with signed webhook delivery.

Feasibility reports

Combine planning activity with flood risk and market evidence around a site.

Free access

Try the API with sample planning records.

Create a free key to inspect response formats, test local searches, and confirm PlanWire fits your workflow. Live data, broad coverage, exports, and webhooks are included on paid plans.