Plota: Planning Applications

The simple document retrieval pair is search then fetch: fetch an id from search as full text with proposal, address, council, status, decision, dates, category and links. For structured analysis and optional contact or constraint fields, use search_applications and get_application.

Resolve a council name to the slug every other tool takes: "Waltham Forest" gives waltham-forest. Give any fragment of the name; add nation or region to narrow it. Use this rather than list_councils, which returns every authority.

One saved alert by id.

One planning application in full by its Plota id (the id field from any search result): proposal, address, status, decision, dates, category, documents count, links, and on Pro the planning constraints at the site. This is where the enrichment lives, so search widely and then call this on the one or two that matter. Applicant and agent where held with include_contacts true.

The planning context of ONE property or site in a single call: applications at or beside the site, applications that may be at it, the families those belong to (amendments, discharges of conditions, reserved matters, appeals), the nearest applications around it, larger housing schemes nearby, the planning constraints at the point (flood zone, conservation area, listed buildings, green belt and the rest) and the council's decision times and approval rate. Use it for "what should I know about planning at or around this address"; give an address, a full postcode, or lat and lng. Do not use it for a filtered search across an area or for several sites: that is search_applications or nearby_applications. It returns evidence with links, not a judgement. It makes up to seven ordinary API requests on the account; a section the plan does not include comes back marked unavailable with the reason, and the rest still answers.

The saved alerts on this account.

The planning categories (slug and label) used by the category filter. Call once and reuse the slugs.

The councils Plota monitors with slug, nation, region and coverage. Filter by nation, region, a name fragment (q) or coverage_status; unfiltered it is every authority Plota covers, so filter when looking for one.

The webhooks registered on this account.

Planning applications near a point, ordered by distance: give lat and lng, a full UK postcode, or an address (geocoded live), with a radius in metres (max 5000).

Fallback lookup for a phrase that cannot be broken into filters: a building or estate by name, a street, a council reference, or words from a proposal. Up to ten results with id, title and URL; call fetch with an id for the full record, including historical results. Reference-shaped queries rank exact references first across live and plan-entitled historical records, followed by text mentions. Check the council when several exact matches exist. Whenever the question names a council, a place, a category, a stage, a date range or a number of homes, use search_applications instead for explicit filters.

Decided planning appeals from the Planning Inspectorate: filter by council, outcome (allowed, dismissed, split), type, decision date range, reference or postcode.

The main way to find applications, and the right tool whenever any part of the question can be named as a filter. Exact filters: postcode (full or district), council slug, nation, category slug(s), keyword q, normalised stage, procedure, received and decided date ranges, or a lat/lng radius. Returns records with address, proposal, status, dates, category and links to the Plota page and the council record, plus meta.next_cursor for the next page. Read the council slug from find_council and category slugs from list_categories. Records come back without contacts or constraints unless asked for.

What the national datasets put at a coordinate, a full postcode or an address (geocoded live): flood zones, green belt, conservation areas, listed buildings, scheduled monuments, national landscapes, tree preservation orders, rights of way, farmland grades and more. Pro plan and above; a demo key gets 20 checks to try it.

Send a signed test event to a webhook by id. This calls the customer's endpoint: confirm with the user before calling.

Change a saved alert: frequency, label, type_filter, exclude_trees, or paused true/false. This changes what the account owner is emailed: confirm the change with the user before calling.