Editorial standards

Every guide on this site is written and reviewed by Alexis Pratsides, Founder of Planning Signal. There is no anonymous content and no syndicated filler.

We are not chartered planners and we do not present ourselves as such. Our expertise is in the planning record itself: reading it, checking it, and knowing where it is incomplete. Where a guide states a rule, it cites the legislation so you can read the rule rather than take our word for it.

Guides that state a legal requirement or a statutory figure cite the primary source on legislation.gov.uk, named down to the section or class. A guide about fence heights cites the class of the General Permitted Development Order that sets them; a guide about enforcement cites the section of the Town and Country Planning Act that sets the time limits.

We do not cite legislation where the rule is not statutory. Listed building grades come from the government's Principles of Selection, not the Act, so that is what we cite. The list of material considerations is policy and case law rather than a list in the statute, and we say so rather than implying otherwise. A citation that points at the wrong thing is worse than no citation.

Planning Signal reads planning registers directly from the councils that publish them. More than 400 UK authorities are covered across 22 portal systems, refreshed every night, and every application on the site links back to the council's own record so you can check the source yourself.

Where a council publishes its decision notices, we read the conditions out of the notice itself rather than summarising them. Coverage is measured and published on the homepage, including how many councils delivered data this month, because a coverage figure nobody checks is not worth much.

Planning rules change, and undated guidance is worth very little. Every guide shows the date it was last reviewed, and that date changes only when someone has actually re-read it against the current legislation.

When the law moves we re-check every guide that touches it, not only the obvious one. In September 2026 a single change to enforcement time limits turned out to have left two separate guides wrong, which is why the check is now deliberately broad.

We correct errors in place, and we would rather say plainly what was wrong than quietly edit it away.

In September 2026, checking our own figures against the legislation found eight errors across the guides. The enforcement guide still described the four year immunity rule that England replaced with a ten year limit on 25 April 2024. It gave the maximum fine for breaching a condition as £2,500 when in England it is unlimited. It gave a temporary stop notice as 28 days when in England it has been 56 since the same date. A guide on discharging conditions had two fees the wrong way round and out of date, and described a deemed discharge as automatic when it requires the applicant to serve notice. All are fixed.

If you find something wrong, tell us at support@planningsignal.co.uk and we will check it against the source and correct it.

Nobody can pay to appear in a guide, to be recommended in one, or to have one written. Guides carry no sponsored content and no affiliate links.

Our directories list companies from the public planning record whether they pay us or not. A company can claim its profile for nothing. Where a listing is promoted, it is labelled as promoted. Paying changes how prominently a company appears; it never changes whether it appears, and it never changes what a guide says.

This guide explains the general position in England and is a starting point, not advice on a specific site. Planning rules change and councils apply them differently, so check with your local planning authority before you commit to anything.

Planning decisions turn on the specifics of a site, and a guide cannot see your site. For anything that matters, speak to your local planning authority or a qualified planning consultant.