Who builds Planning Constraints
Planning Constraints is a screening tool for planning constraints in England, Wales and Scotland. It is built and run by Martin Broadhurst at Broadhurst Digital Limited, in Derby.
Why it exists
The facts that decide what you can do with a site sit in many places: Historic England, Cadw and Historic Environment Scotland for heritage, the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and SEPA for flooding, and each local planning authority for Article 4 directions and tree preservation orders. Checking them by hand takes time, and a blank on a map does not tell you whether nothing is there or the council has not published the data.
So Planning Constraints brings the sources together and says, for each one, whether it found something, came back clear, or could not be checked, with the source named. That last category is the point of the product.
Where the data comes from
- Official open data published by public bodies, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0 or the publisher’s own licence.
- PlanIt, a private aggregator, for planning application history.
- HM Land Registry corporate and overseas ownership data, for England and Wales only. We show owner names and totals, never property addresses.
Every source, its publisher and its licence is on the sources and licences page, and the list of checks shows what is checked in each nation.
What it is not
Planning Constraints is a screening tool. It is not an official local authority search, not a CON29 or an LLC1, and not professional or legal advice. Some councils do not publish every dataset, so check anything important with the local planning authority before you act. We do not serve Northern Ireland.
The company
Broadhurst Digital Limited, registered in England, company number 12503471, VAT number GB355920584. Registered office: 18 St Nicholas Place, Derby, DE1 3GD.
Questions about a result, billing or a plan: email support@planningconstraints.com. The contact page has the full details.