About the data

We check your pin against planning designations published on planning.data.gov.uk, the government's planning data platform. Some of this data is national and covers all of England. The rest is published by each council, and not every council has published everything yet.

This site gives general guidance only. It isn't legal advice, and only your council can confirm whether you need planning permission.

National data (all of England)

• Listed buildings: Historic England's National Heritage List. Listed buildings are recorded as a single point, so we look within about 20m of your pin and ask you to check whether a nearby listing is your home.
• Flood zones: Environment Agency.
• Green belt: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
• National parks, National Landscapes and SSSIs: Natural England.
• World Heritage Sites: Historic England.

Council data

Conservation areas, Article 4 directions, listed building outlines and tree preservation orders come from councils. If a council hasn't published one of these, your result says so and tells you to check with the council. We never treat missing data as meaning nothing is there.

Which councils publish what

Number of records each planning authority has published on planning.data.gov.uk. Where a council hasn't published something, results there say so.

The rules

Our rules come from the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, as amended, which we check against the current version on legislation.gov.uk. The government's householder technical guidance was last updated in September 2019 and doesn't reflect some later changes, such as solar panels on flat roofs, so we use it only to interpret terms like "original house".

Photo credits

Most of our header photos are our own. These come from Wikimedia Commons, and have been cropped and recoloured with our brand colours; the originals are linked below.

• Rear extension: photo by habiloid, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped and recoloured.
• National landscape: photo by Jonathan Billinger, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped and recoloured.

What we can't check

• Conditions on your home's original planning permission that remove permitted development rights (common on newer estates).
• Earlier extensions, beyond what you tell us.
• Restrictive covenants in your deeds, which are a legal matter separate from planning.
• Building regulations, party wall matters and your water company's rules on building near sewers.

Sources and licences

• Planning designations from planning.data.gov.uk (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and local planning authorities). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Listed buildings and World Heritage Sites: contains Historic England data © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.
• Flood zones: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2026. All rights reserved.
• National parks, National Landscapes and SSSIs: © Natural England copyright. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.
• Postcode locations from postcodes.io: contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026; contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026; source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Rules based on the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, as amended, from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.