Plumbers & bathroom fitters — planning application leads | PlanWatch
PlanWatch Demand Radar · for plumbers & bathroom fitters

Bathrooms, en-suites and utility rooms, named in the application — plus every build that adds one.

Some applications name the work outright: a bathroom, an en-suite, a wet room, a utility. The rest imply it. A loft conversion usually gains an en-suite, a kitchen extension moves the sink and often the boiler, and a new dwelling is a full installation from scratch. All of it is dated on the register before the homeowner starts looking.

10,409 matching applications hit the UK register in the last 30 days — filtered down to just the councils or postcode areas you cover.

Why the register beats every other lead source

Bathroom work is bought on recommendation, and you are only recommended if you were visible at the right week.
Merchant showrooms catch the customer late, after two firms have already quoted.
Reactive leaks and breakdowns are unplannable; consented projects are not.

A fitted bathroom or en-suite runs into thousands; a new dwelling or a whole-house renovation is a far bigger ticket, and both repeat through the maintenance years after.

Exactly what we match for plumbers & bathroom fitters

This is the real matching table, not marketing. Every lead row you receive shows its trigger, demand window and confidence — and the reasoning is printed on the row so you can sanity-check every address before it's mailed.

TriggerExample from the registerDemand windowConfidenceWhy it matters to you
Bathroom / en-suite / wet roomSingle storey rear extension to form utility room and shower roomnow – 4 monthshighthe application names the bathroom/en-suite/utility work itself
Loft conversion / dormerLoft conversion with rear dormer and 3 no. rooflights2 – 5 monthsmediummost loft conversions add an en-suite, but not all — hence medium
Kitchen extension / open-plan kitchenSingle storey rear extension to form open plan kitchen diner2 – 5 monthshighsink, appliances and often the boiler move with the kitchen
Two-storey / first-floor extensionTwo storey side extension and single storey rear extension3 – 6 monthsmediumfirst-floor extensions commonly add a bathroom or en-suite — hence medium
Single-storey extensionHouseholder Planning Application - Single storey rear and side extension2 – 5 monthsmediummany single-storey extensions add a utility or WC — hence medium
Garage conversionGarage conversion to habitable accommodation1 – 4 monthsmediumgarage conversions frequently take a WC, utility or shower room — hence medium
New dwelling(s) / self-buildPlanning Application for the erection of a two storey dwelling with garage4 – 10 monthshigha new dwelling is a full plumbing and heating installation
Open-plan / knock-through kitchen (no extension named)Internal alterations to form open plan kitchen and living space1 – 4 monthsmediumthe sink and appliances usually move with the layout — hence medium
Extension (storeys unspecified)Proposed rear extension and internal alterations2 – 6 monthslowextensions often add a WC or utility — unconfirmed
Renovation / alterations (catch-all)Refurbishment and alterations to existing dwelling1 – 6 monthslowrenovations often move the plumbing — unconfirmed

Named bathroom work is actionable immediately (0–4 months); extension and loft plumbing lands 2–6 months after consent; new dwellings 4–10 months. Demand windows are measured from the expected decision date. Refused and withdrawn applications are dropped automatically. How the demand windows are built →

See what’s in your patch

Enter a full postcode to search a 5 km business radius, or name the councils or postcode districts you cover. We will run the last 90 days of the public register through the same trigger model your batches use and tell you how much matching demand 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.

How it works

1. Pick your patch

The councils or postcode prefixes you cover — a town, a county, or several.

2. We scan the register

Every month we cross live planning applications from 378 UK councils with the trigger model above and score the demand window.

3. You get a mailing list

A deduped, mailing-house-ready CSV of "Owner/Occupier" addresses — one household, one letter, prior recipients suppressed automatically.

Sample leads (anonymised)

TriggerAreaPropertyExpected demand
Bathroom / en-suite / wet roomCO15A property near CO15 ●●●now – 4 months
Loft conversion / dormerCO12A property near CO12 ●●●2 – 5 months
Kitchen extension / open-plan kitchenCO13A property near CO13 ●●●2 – 5 months
Two-storey / first-floor extensionCO16A property near CO16 ●●●3 – 6 months

Real batches show the full site address, planning reference, score and reasoning. Samples are illustrative.

The rules (non-negotiable)

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".

Start your subscription

£149/month · plumbers & bathroom fitters · your patch

Exclusive cover available: one plumbing and bathroom installation subscriber per patch — first come, first served. If your area is already taken, we'll tell you before you pay anything.

Already a subscriber? Open your dashboard →

Straight answers

Do you separate bathroom fitters from general plumbers?
No — it is one list, but every row prints the trigger that put it there. Rows that came from explicit bathroom, en-suite, wet-room or utility wording are marked as such, so a bathroom specialist can work those first and leave the rest.

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.

How far back does the first list go?
There is no fixed cut-off date. We look back across the register and keep only the applications whose buying window for your trade is still upcoming, open or closing. In practice that means most of a first list is the last six months of live projects, plus a tail of larger builds from further back that are only now reaching your stage. Anything finished or already past its window is dropped, and each household appears once and is never sent to you twice — as is anything refused or withdrawn, unless your trade is architects and planning consultants, where a stalled application is the whole point. Whether that first list comes out bigger or smaller than the 90-day figure on the patch checker depends on how long your trade's buying window is, and it goes both ways. A long-window trade — glazing, kitchens, flooring — gets a much bigger first list, because consents from six or twelve months back are only now reaching its stage. A fast-window trade like skip hire or demolition gets a smaller one, because a nought-to-three-month window has already closed on a good share of what the checker counted. Either way later months are smaller than the first: they carry new applications only.

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 list is generated within 24 hours of activation rather than a month later. That first list is not a snapshot of the last few weeks: it carries every live application in your patch whose buying window for your trade is still upcoming, open or closing, which in practice is most of the last six months plus some larger builds from further back that are only now reaching your stage. Finished jobs are dropped and each address appears once. Refused and withdrawn applications are dropped too for every building trade — with one deliberate exception: on the architects and planning consultants list they ARE the list, because a refusal is the moment a household discovers it needs drawings. After that a fresh list arrives every month covering new applications only, so it will be smaller than the first. If your patch turns out to be thinner than you expected in that first month, tell us and we will sort it out.

How to actually work these leads

A list is not a pipeline. What to send, when to send it, how many times to follow up and the compliance line we hold: how to turn planning applications into jobs →

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