Planning application alerts by email

Planning application alerts are email updates that notify you when new planning applications appear in an area you care about. They help you monitor places, councils, categories, and custom areas without repeatedly checking separate council websites.

Choose the area you want to monitor, then pick how often you want to receive updates. You can create alerts from a postcode, street, town, council, category, map search, or custom drawn area. Plota checks council planning portals daily and emails you when new matching applications appear.

Yes. You can start with a postcode, street, town, or council, or draw a custom area on the map using selectable hexagons. This means you can monitor the exact streets, neighbourhoods, villages, or boundaries that matter to you, rather than relying only on a simple radius.

Yes. Plota classifies planning applications by type, so you can focus on the categories you care about. For example, you can monitor new homes, extensions, change of use, commercial and major works, trees, listed buildings, solar and renewables, telecoms masts, utilities, and more.

You can choose daily, weekly, or fortnightly email digests. Daily alerts are useful for areas you want to watch closely, while weekly or fortnightly alerts can work better for lower-priority areas.

We are confident in the quality of Plota's planning data. New applications are collected from council planning portals, cleaned, mapped, and classified so they are easier to search and monitor. Each application links back to the official council record where available, so you can open the source whenever you need the full details, documents, comments, or deadlines.

Yes. Search a postcode, street, council, or neighbourhood you know well, then create a free alert for that area. You can browse recent applications, see how Plota classifies them, and open the official council record from each result where available. It is a simple way to get a feel for how Plota works before setting up more alerts.

Plota checks council planning portals daily and is built to help you spot new planning applications without manually searching separate council websites. Coverage is broad and we are confident in the data, but planning information ultimately depends on what each council publishes and when it makes that information available. For formal decisions, deadlines, comments, or legal matters, always use the council portal as the source of truth.

Planning application dates do not always reflect when an application first becomes visible online. A council may publish an application days or weeks after the received date, and the validated date can also appear after the council has completed its internal checks. Plota checks council portals daily, so once an application is published and available through the council source, it should usually appear on Plota within 24 hours.

Plota checks council planning portals daily. Once a council publishes a new application and makes it available through its planning portal, it should usually appear on Plota within 24 hours. The exact timing can vary because councils publish applications in different ways and at different stages of the planning process.

The council planning portal is the official source for the application. Plota helps you discover, search, filter, map, and monitor planning applications more easily, then links back to the council record so you can view the full details, documents, comments, and deadlines where available.

No. The official planning record remains with the relevant local planning authority. Plota helps you discover, search, filter, map, and monitor planning applications more easily, with links back to the council record where available. For formal decisions, deadlines, documents, and comments, always use the council portal as the source of truth.

Council descriptions vary widely and often cover more than one kind of work. Plota classifies applications to make them easier to search, filter, and alert on. Categories are designed to be useful for discovery and monitoring, but they should be treated as a practical guide rather than a legal planning classification. Always check the full council record if the exact detail matters.

Plota covers 382 UK planning authorities and checks council planning portals for new applications daily. You can see the full list on the councils page. Coverage can vary where councils change systems, use unusual portals, or publish limited data. Where an application is shown, Plota links back to the official council record where available.

Council alert services vary widely. Most councils do not offer flexible new-application alerts, and where alerts exist they are often tied to one portal, one search type, or applications you already know about. Plota gives you a more consistent way to discover new applications, create alerts from places, councils, categories, map searches, or drawn areas, and manage saved areas from one dashboard.

A postcode alert can be useful, but planning activity does not always fit neatly inside a circle. Plota lets you monitor by postcode, street, town, council, category, map view, or custom drawn area. You can also filter by classified application type and manage multiple saved areas from one dashboard.