How to Use UK Planning Applications as Sales Leads

A validated planning application means a council has accepted a proposal as complete and building work may be coming. For builders, scaffolders, architects, roofers and other trades, that is an early, public signal of a project.

The friction is the portals. Each council publishes its own weekly lists on its own site, with search forms that differ in small ways, so watching even a handful of areas every week takes real time, and copying results into a spreadsheet takes more.

This guide shows how to turn those weekly lists into a lead feed: checking coverage, choosing validated or decided applications, filtering proposals for your trade, pulling out postcodes and running it on a schedule without repeats.

Step by step

1. Check that your area is covered

   The actor reads 15 council portals: Isle of Wight, Durham, Barnet (London), Leeds, York, Cornwall, Trafford, Gateshead, Bradford, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Sunderland, Southampton, Greater Cambridge and Oxford. Use the lowercase ids in councils, for example leeds or greater-cambridge, or leave the field empty for all 15.

2. Pick validated or decided applications

   For lead generation, use dateType validated: these are newly accepted applications, so the project is live and decisions are still ahead. Use decided if you sell to people who have just been granted permission, or to track approvals in an area.

   {
     "councils": ["trafford", "barnet"],
     "dateType": "decided",
     "weeksBack": 1,
     "maxResults": 300
   }

3. Fetch at least one full week

   Weekly lists roll over on Mondays, so the newest list can be nearly empty early in the week. Set weeksBack to 2 so each run always includes a complete week. Each weekly list is read up to 20 result pages, about 200 applications, which covers a normal week for most councils.

4. Filter proposals for the work you do

   The proposal field holds the council's description of the work, such as 'Erection of single storey rear extension and conversion of garage to habitable room'. A simple keyword filter separates likely jobs from tree works and signage. Adjust the pattern list to your trade.

   import os
   import re
   
   from apify_client import ApifyClient
   
   PATTERNS = re.compile(r"extension|loft|dormer|conversion|new dwelling|erection of", re.I)
   EXCLUDE = re.compile(r"\btree\b|advertisement|signage", re.I)
   
   client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
   run = client.actor("actor-forge/uk-planning-applications").call(run_input={
       "councils": ["leeds", "bradford", "york"],
       "dateType": "validated",
       "weeksBack": 2,
       "maxResults": 1000,
   })
   
   leads = []
   for app in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
       text = app.get("proposal") or ""
       if PATTERNS.search(text) and not EXCLUDE.search(text):
           leads.append(app)
   
   for app in leads:
       print(app["council"], app["reference"], "|", app["address"], "|", app["url"])
   print(len(leads), "matching applications")

5. Pull out postcodes for routing and mapping

   Site addresses usually end with a UK postcode, as in 'Land Adjacent To 6 Withyfields Shalfleet Newport Isle Of Wight PO30 4QA'. Extracting the postcode lets you sort leads by district, assign them to a rep or plot them on a map.

   import re
   
   POSTCODE = re.compile(r"\b([A-Z]{1,2}\d[A-Z\d]?)\s*(\d[A-Z]{2})\b", re.I)
   
   
   def postcode(address):
       m = POSTCODE.search(address or "")
       return f"{m.group(1).upper()} {m.group(2).upper()}" if m else None
   
   
   def district(address):
       pc = postcode(address)
       return pc.split()[0] if pc else None
   
   
   print(postcode("12 Example Road Oxford OX4 1AB"), district("12 Example Road Oxford OX4 1AB"))

6. Schedule weekly runs without repeats

   Schedule the actor every Monday morning with weeksBack 2. Because consecutive runs overlap by a week, deduplicate on the council plus reference pair before sending leads on, so the same application is not followed up twice. Every row links to the council's own application page, where your team can read the documents.

7. Follow up through the right channels

   Applicant and agent personal details are deliberately not collected, so the dataset gives you the site, the proposal and the link, not a contact list. Use the address and the council record to plan how you reach the project, and keep your outreach within data protection and marketing rules.

Sample input

{
  "councils": [
    "leeds"
  ],
  "weeksBack": 2,
  "dateType": "validated",
  "maxResults": 200
}

Sample output

Applications from every council share one layout with a deep link to the official record:

Run it from code

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/actor-forge~uk-planning-applications/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"councils": ["leeds"], "weeksBack": 2, "dateType": "validated", "maxResults": 200}'

JavaScript (Node.js)

// Node.js 18+ (built-in fetch). Set APIFY_TOKEN in your environment.
const input = {
  "councils": [
    "leeds"
  ],
  "weeksBack": 2,
  "dateType": "validated",
  "maxResults": 200
};

const res = await fetch(
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/actor-forge~uk-planning-applications/run-sync-get-dataset-items",
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.APIFY_TOKEN}`,
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify(input),
  }
);
const items = await res.json();
console.log(items.length, items[0]);

Python

# pip install apify-client   (set APIFY_TOKEN in your environment)
import os
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run_input = {
    "councils": [
        "leeds"
    ],
    "weeksBack": 2,
    "dateType": "validated",
    "maxResults": 200
}

run = client.actor("actor-forge/uk-planning-applications").call(run_input=run_input)
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

The run-sync-get-dataset-items endpoint waits for the run (up to 5 minutes) and returns the dataset rows directly. For longer runs, start the run asynchronously and read the dataset when it finishes, as the Python example does. Replace APIFY_TOKEN with your own token from the Apify console.

What it costs

At $0.003 per application, a typical single-council week of about 25 applications costs around $0.08. If three councils produce 400 validated applications across two weeks, that run costs 400 x $0.003 = $1.20.

Tips and pitfalls

• A council portal outage only affects that council; it is flagged in the run log and exit message and the rest of the run continues.
• Busy weeks at a large council can be cut off after about 200 applications, so check the count if a big council looks light.
• Decided lists are useful a second time: an approved extension that you quoted for is a reason to follow up.
• The actor makes no more than one request per second per council portal, so all-council runs take a little longer than single-council ones.

FAQ

Actors used in this guide

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