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What is Planning Constraints?

Planning Constraints is a tool for screening the planning constraints that apply to any address or site in England, Wales or Scotland. Point it at a location — an address, a postcode, or a spot on the map — and it tells you what official datasets say about that patch of land: conservation areas, listed buildings, flood risk, tree preservation orders, green belt, SSSIs, and well over a hundred other categories, all in one place.

Who it's for​

  • Planning consultants and architects doing initial due diligence before taking on a project, or preparing evidence for a planning application.
  • Developers and land buyers screening sites before an offer, or checking a shortlist quickly.
  • Homeowners and small landowners who want a plain-English answer to "can I do this?" before spending money on professional advice.
  • Surveyors and agents who need a defensible, sourced summary to attach to a report or a listing.

What it checks​

Every check draws on official, open data: planning.data.gov.uk (the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government's national planning data platform), Historic England, Natural England, the Environment Agency, the Mining Remediation Authority, and HM Land Registry. Nothing here is a private dataset dressed up as authoritative — every finding traces back to a named public source, and reports state their sources.

Coverage is England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland isn't served — its flood, address-matching and mapping data all need separate licences we haven't bought, so that's a scope decision, not a gap we're working to close.

Wales and Scotland aren't simply England with a different map underneath — each publishes through its own systems, so a few things work differently. Wales has no green belt, no brownfield register, and no national Article 4 direction or Tree Preservation Order publication, and its flood layer is the TAN15 Flood Map for Planning. Scotland reports flood likelihood (high, medium or low) rather than Flood Zones, which don't exist there; has no Source Protection Zones (the nearest equivalent is a Drinking Water Protected Area); and follows NPF4 and the local development plan rather than the NPPF. A handful of Scottish layers are also built from individual councils choosing to submit data, so a result can correctly say a named council hasn't supplied anything rather than reading as clear. Ownership data covers England and Wales only (see Understanding ownership data), and schools data and Area Watches stay England-only because their sources do.

What it isn't​

Planning Constraints gives you screening information, not a professional search and not planning advice. It tells you what the official registers say at a point in time, with sources you can check. Before you rely on a finding for a purchase, a planning application, or any decision with money on the line, verify it with the local planning authority or a suitably qualified professional. See the in-app Terms of Use & Sale for the full position.

How it's priced​

Interactive checking — search an address, see what applies, get the nearest distance to anything nearby — is free, with no account needed: 3 searches a day, rising permanently to 5 a day once you leave an email address (a one-off action, not something you repeat). Paid tiers add the things that leave the app: PDF and CSV reports, wider search radii, saved sites with monitoring, and (for practices) shared workspaces, branded client portals and an API. See Plans and what they unlock for the full breakdown.

Where to start​

If you haven't run a check yet, the fastest way in is Your first site check. If you already know which plan you need, jump to Plans and what they unlock.