Every planning application carries a reference: 24/01234/FUL, DC/26/0456, 3PL/2024/0561/HOU. They look like unique identifiers. They aren't. Each council numbers its own register, so the same string recurs all over the country - 26/00245/FUL is currently a live application in 34 different councils, each one describing a different site.
That one fact shaped several things we've shipped recently: how reference search behaves, what happens to references written inside application descriptions, and a new way to join on references in the API.
Search by reference
Paste a reference into the search box and Plota looks it up directly against every register we monitor. If one application carries it, you go straight to that page. If several councils use it, you see each match with its address and council, so you can pick the right one. Smart search does the same, and reaches the archive back to 2016.
References inside descriptions are now links
Planning is chained. A variation varies a parent permission, reserved matters follow an outline, conditions are discharged against an earlier consent - and councils write those parent references straight into the description. Until now each one meant another portal search.
Now Plota recognises reference-shaped strings inside descriptions and makes them clickable. Click one and the cited application appears in place - address, status, decision, dates, and a link through to its page. The lookup is scoped to the same council, so among all the authorities sharing that string you always get the right one, and it checks live records first with the archive behind it.
Variation of condition 2 of planning permission 3PL/2024/0561/HOU to amend approved drawings - addition of one garage door.
Why it matters
A site's planning story is rarely one application. It's an outline, then reserved matters, then a variation or two, then discharge of conditions - sometimes an appeal. The reference chain is how that story is reconstructed, and following it used to mean a separate register search for every citation. Now it's a click, it works across ten years of records, and it lands on the right council's application every time.
Joining on references in the API
For data teams, the reference is usually the join key between planning data and everything else - deal lists, site trackers, CRM records, appraisal spreadsheets. So GET /v1/applications now takes a reference parameter: exact, case- and space-insensitive. On its own it returns every authority using that string; add council and you've pinned the one application your row refers to.
Full parameters are in the developer docs, and the free demo key covers it if you want to try a join against your own data.