About WithConditions

Overview

Each year in the UK, around 370,000 planning applications are decided by the country's 382 local authorities. Varying in importance from the trivial (a colour change to a building material) to the monumental (a new Dartford crossing), these decisions shape the appearance, wealth, and health of the country.

Once a planning application is submitted by a person or organisation, it begins a lifecycle that generally has three possible outcomes: the application is approved by the local authority, refused by the local authority, or withdrawn by the applicant.

When a local authority approves an application, it generally does so subject to conditions. A condition in this context is an action that must be carried out by the applicant for the proposal to be acceptable to the planning authority. A condition is generally verifiable and can often only be "discharged" via a further planning application.

Here are some examples of planning conditions attached to approved applications:

• The windows at first floor shall be obscure glazed and shall be non‑opening (from an application for a new house).
• Hours of operation will be restricted to between 0700 and 1700, Mondays to Fridays (from an application for a new transport depot).
• Reduce and shape one Acacia, one Maple and one Plum by one third (from an application to carry out works on trees in a conservation area).

These conditions are published in a document known as a Decision Notice, which is in the public domain. In the case of a refusal, a Decision Notice will also be published, itemising the reasons for refusal in a similar fashion.

Following the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR), Decision Notices have been made available on the internet through each local authority's planning portal. They are generally published weekly and can be accessed easily by any member of the public with internet access.

WithConditions simplifies the process of searching for conditions for any party with an interest in their content.

How it works

The PlanitGrab portal is a free-to-use service that allows users to access a current database of up‑to‑date planning information from all of the UK's planning authorities. Each week, WithConditions retrieves a list of applications from the PlanitGrab database that have been decided in the previous week. Based on the description of the application, it selects those of greatest significance and analyses the text of each application's associated Decision Notice.

Principally, this means identifying information on conditions accompanying approved applications (or reasons for refusal in the case of refused applications). Using modern machine‑learning techniques, this data is categorised and added to our database. These categorised conditions are then made available to our subscribers. Typically, our subscribers are professionals with an interest in planning conditions — for example, archaeologists may be interested in decisions containing archaeological requirements.

Currently, this site is free to use for credentialed professionals and presents selected applications from 43 local authorities in the UK's Eastern Region.

Based on feedback from professionals who use the site, we may launch as a paid subscription service in the future.

With Conditions was created by and is maintained by Sulltech Ltd - contact info@sulltech.co.uk for further information.

Authority Subscriptions

Select the local authorities you want to subscribe to for planning applications: