Trade leads from planning applications — Demand Radar | PlanWatch
PlanWatch Demand Radar

They have already decided to build.
They just haven’t chosen you yet.

Every planning application is a household telling the council exactly what it is about to spend money on — with the address attached, in public, months before anyone rings a single trade. We turn that into a monthly mailing list for your patch.

23,302 applications matched a trade in the last 30 days, across 378 UK councils. No sign-up needed to check your own area.

Domestic building work across a UK neighbourhood

See what’s in your patch

Type the councils or postcode areas you actually work. We will run the last 90 days of the public register through the same trigger model your batches use and tell you how much demand for your trade is sitting in it right now.

Counts only. High and medium confidence matches, deduplicated to one line per application. The site addresses, planning references and per-row reasoning are what a subscription buys.

The arithmetic is not close

£149
per month, whole patch
every consent in it, not per lead
£15k–£80k
typical job value
extension, orangery, loft, re-roof
1 job
pays for years of it
the rest is margin

Pay-per-lead portals charge for every enquiry, converted or not, and sell the same one to your competitors. Radar is a flat fee for an entire patch — if forty consents land in your area this month, you get forty addresses for the same price as four.

Why you get there first

A domestic project has a fixed running order. The homeowner appears on the public register at the very start of it — and starts phoning trades near the end. Everyone competing with you arrives at the phone call. You arrive at the application.

  1. Week 0 Application validated Address, description and drawings go public. Your letter lands here.
  2. Week 8–10 Decision Consent granted. The homeowner starts getting serious about money.
  3. Month 0–3 Groundwork & shell Builders, brickwork, scaffold, skips.
  4. Month 2–6 Roof, glazing, kitchen Windows, conservatories, kitchens, heating.
  5. Too late “Best fitter near me” The Google search everyone else is bidding on. A supplier is usually already chosen.

Each trade gets its own demand window, measured from the expected decision date and printed on every row — so you mail when the work is actually near, not the day the application appears. How the windows are built →

What lands in your inbox, monthly

Not a dashboard you have to learn. A deduplicated CSV your mailing house can run as-is — and every row shows the reasoning, so you can throw one out before you pay to print it.

conservatories-chelmsford-2026-08.csv 102 households · deduplicated · prior recipients removed
NameAddressService & why it matchedReceived
The Owner/Occupier14 Ridgewell Avenue, Chelmsford CM1conservatories — conservatory / orangery / garden room high confidence13 May
The Owner/Occupier1 Mill Lane, Ramsden Heath CM11conservatories — demolition of existing conservatory replacement08 May
The Owner/Occupier23 Horse & Groom Lane, Galleywood CM2conservatories — conservatory / orangery / garden room high confidence07 May

Illustrative rows in the real export format. Live batches carry the full address, postcode and planning reference, so every letter can cite the application it refers to.

One household, one letter

Deduplicated within the batch and across every batch you have had — we never hand you the same address twice.

Dead applications removed

Refused and withdrawn are dropped before you see them. So is anything we cannot date honestly.

Your own suppression list

Anyone who asks not to be contacted goes on it, and never appears in a future batch.

One firm per trade, per patch

The point of arriving early is that nobody else has. So we sell a patch once: if you hold exclusive cover for conservatories across Essex, no other conservatory firm can buy those councils from us at any price. The check runs before you pay — if your area is already taken we tell you at signup and take nothing.

Patches are claimed on payment, not on interest, so nobody can sit on your area for free.

Claim my patch →

Start your subscription

£149/month · one trade · your patch

Monthly, cancel any time. Your first batch generates on the next monthly run.

Already a subscriber? Open your dashboard →

Before you buy: the honest version

Three ways to find domestic work, and they are not really competitors — they sit at different points in the same customer’s timeline. Here is where each genuinely wins, including where we lose.

Demand RadarPay-per-lead portalsDoor-knocking
When you reach them Weeks to months before they shortlist, off a consent they have already paid to apply for. The moment they raise their hand and ask for quotes. Whenever you happen to be on the street.
How warm they are Cold. They did not ask to hear from you — they are simply, demonstrably, about to spend. Warm. They filled in a form asking to be contacted about exactly this job. Cold, but you are stood in front of them.
Who else is contacting them Nobody with the same signal. Exclusive cover means no other subscriber in your trade holds your patch. Typically several firms buy the same enquiry, and the homeowner knows it. Whoever else knocks that week.
What you pay for A flat monthly fee for the patch, however many consents land in it. Each lead, converted or not, including the duds. Your time, or a canvasser’s wage and commission.
Work required to convert The most. It is a mail campaign with a cadence, not an inbound call. The least. Ring the number while the enquiry is fresh. High, but you get an answer on the doorstep.
Where the others beat us A portal lead wants a quote today and will pick up the phone. Radar will never match that: earlier necessarily means colder. You handle objections face to face and can book the survey on the spot. A letter cannot do either.

If you need work booked next week, buy a portal lead. Radar is a pipeline instrument, not an emergency one — and a firm with no capacity to send letters consistently should not buy it at all. Used together they work: Radar tells you which streets to prioritise for the next few months, knocking and referrals close them, a portal fills a quiet week.

The rules we hold

Postal outreach only. Mail only — no email, no SMS, no cold calls. Each letter should cite the planning reference and carry an opt-out address. The data is from the public planning register; we store no applicant names and address letters to “The Owner/Occupier”.

Straight answers

Where does the data come from?

Published planning applications from the UK planning register — planning.data.gov.uk plus direct council sources, covering 378 local authorities. That register is public information. What you pay for is the trade-trigger matching, the demand-window timing, the deduplication and the suppression, not the raw fact of the applications.

Why postal outreach only? Can I get phone numbers?

No, and that is deliberate. The register is published for planning transparency, not to build a calling list. We store no applicant names, so there is nothing to phone: letters are addressed to "The Owner/Occupier" at the property. Mail only — no email, no SMS, no cold calls — and every letter should cite the planning reference and carry an opt-out address. Firms that want a dialler list are not a fit for this product.

How does exclusivity work?

One subscriber per trade, per patch. The check runs before you pay: if another firm in your trade already holds those councils or postcode areas, we tell you at signup and take no money. Exclusivity is scoped to your trade only — a roofer and a window company can both hold the same town without clashing.

Can I cancel?

Yes. Billing is monthly and you can cancel at any time; cover runs to the end of the month you have paid for, then the patch is released for someone else. There is no minimum term and no contract to exit.

What happens when I sign up today?

You go straight to secure checkout, and your first batch is generated on the next monthly run. If your patch turns out to be thinner than you expected in that first month, tell us and we will sort it out.

Find out what is sitting in your patch right now

One field, no card. If the answer is thin, we will tell you that instead of selling you something.

Check my patch — free

New to working the register? Read the guide: how to turn planning applications into jobs →

PlanWatch Demand Radar · leads sourced from the public UK planning register · postal outreach only. The guide