Screen a site before you write the fee proposal
Screen a site in minutes, see what couldn’t be checked, and send the client a sourced report.
An enquiry arrives. What do you need to know first?
Before you price the work you want to know whether the site sits in a conservation area, near a listed building, under an Article 4 direction, in a flood zone, in the green belt or under a tree preservation order. Pulling that from Historic England, the Environment Agency, Natural England and the council’s own maps is time you rarely bill.
Planning Constraints runs those checks together from a postcode, an address, a grid reference or a point on the map, and shows the source for each line.
What it shows you that a map does not
A blank on a map looks the same whether nothing is there or the council has not published the data. Each line here is one of three things:
- Found. What it is, how far away, and the source.
- Came back clear. The source was checked and returned nothing for the site.
- Couldn’t check. The source did not answer, or the council has not supplied it. In Scotland the report names the council.
Some councils do not publish every dataset, so where it matters, ask the council. The report is explicit about this rather than leaving a gap to read as clear.
Something the client can read
- A PDF report with a verdict by domain, the source for each line and a scaled map figure.
- A hosted link to the same report, so you can send it without an attachment.
- CSV and GIS exports for your own working files.
It is a screening report. It is not an official search, a CON29 or an LLC1, and it does not predict a planning outcome. Use it to decide what to investigate, what to ask the council at pre-application stage, and what to put in the proposal.
See a sample report, built from invented findings.
Each nation in its own terms
- England: the NPPF context, green belt, Flood Zones 2 and 3, and Article 4 directions where councils publish them.
- Wales: Planning Policy Wales and the TAN15 Flood Map for Planning. Wales has no green belt.
- Scotland: NPF4 and local development plans, and SEPA flood likelihood rather than flood zones. There is no Flood Zone 2 or 3 in Scotland.
Northern Ireland is not covered.
Priced for a small practice
One site: the site report is £9.99, one-off. Regular screening: Pro is £19 a month for unlimited sites, saved work, monitoring and exports. Five people: Team is £49 a month, month to month, with a VAT invoice. All prices include VAT.