Specification

Planning application decision

Abstract

This specification defines the format and contents which a planning authority or other party may use to provide information about one or more Planning application decisions.

Status of this specification

Working draft

Warning It is inappropriate to cite this draft document as other than a work in progress.

This document sets out the requirements for providing data in conformance to the specification which is currently under development. Providing data to this draft specification is at present optional, though encouraged.

This is a draft specification, following the standards for planning data process [design-process]. The contents of this specification are currently under development, and liable to change based on feedback.

This document places no obligations on any party to provide data in conformance to this specification.

A future version of this specification may be formally published on GOV.UK, and cited as one of a number of official data standards for the provision of planning data under the proposed Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 [LURA].

This technical specification is accompanied by guidance, examples and other tools which provide feedback to organisations creating data to this specification.

Comments and feedback on this specification may be provided on the GitHub discussion or sent to digitalland@communities.gov.uk.

Version: 2.0.0 — published 2025-02-13

See versions — See changelog

Conformance

As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.

The key words MAY, MUST, NOT, and SHOULD in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals [RFC8174] as shown here.

Source documentation

The source documentation is a web page where the user should go to confirm the validity of information provided in the data.

The source documentation SHOULD be a web page accessible as [HTML] from a public URL.

Finding the information on the organisation's official website helps users check the information in the data. It increases the trust the user may place in the origin of the data, and that it is more likely to be sustained.

The source documentation SHOULD be on the offical website for the organisation.

A Local Authority or other public body should put the documentation page under their .gov.uk domain.

The source documentation MAY either contain the endpoint documentation, or link to one or more separate endpoint documentation pages.

Endpoint documentation

The endpoint documentation is a web page where a user can find a link to where they can download the data (the endpoint), along with other information relevant to a data user, such as the date the data was last updated. Every endpoint needs to be findable via a link on the source documentation page, and the endpoint documentation can be on the source page, on a separate documentation point for each endpoint, or a combination thereof.

The documentation for an endpoint SHOULD be accessible as [HTML] from a public URL.

The endpoint documentation URL SHOULD have the same URL as the source documentation.

The endpoint documentation include a hyperlink to one or more endpoints for Planning application data.

The endpoint documentation include a hyperlink to one or more endpoints for planning application log data.

The endpoint documentation include a hyperlink to one or more endpoints for planning application document data.

The endpoint documentation page SHOULD include a clear licence for reusing the data.

The data SHOULD be published as [crown-copyright] under [OGL3].

This data is © Crown copyright and available under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

The endpoint documentation page SHOULD include any further attribution a user of the data needs to provide if they copy, publish, distribute or otherwise retransmit the data.

Dataset relationships

The following diagram illustrates the datasets specified by this document, and how data in a dataset entry may reference, or be referenced by an entry in another dataset.

Datasets

Planning application

An application for planning permission.

The Planning application dataset contain at least one entry for each Planning application for which the data provider is the responsible authority.

Planning application fields

Reference

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a reference field.

The Planning application reference field MUST be a reference value.

The planning application reference (for example, "27/AP/9032")

Name

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a name field.

The Planning application name field MUST be a text value.

Name of the planning application (for example, "Residential alteration to Downton House")

Description

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a description field.

The Planning application description field MUST be a text value.

Brief description of the application (for example, "Alterations to two windows on the southern elevation of the 3rd floor flat")

Address text

Each Planning application entry MAY contain an address-text field.

The Planning application address-text field MUST be a text value.

The address of the site as a single line of text (for example, "11 High Street, Ambridge, BO22 3LL")

UPRN

Each Planning application entry MAY contain an uprn field.

The Planning application uprn field MUST be a text value.

The UPRN for the primary address of the site

Geometry

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a geometry field.

The Planning application geometry field MUST be a geometry value.

the boundary of the site as a POLYGON or MULTIPOLYGON, with points in the EPSG 4326 coordinate reference system, and WGS85 datum, encoded in Well-Known Text (WKT) representation of geometry

Point

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a point field.

The Planning application point field MUST be a point value.

Documentation URL

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a documentation-url field.

The Planning application documentation-url field MUST be a URL value.

The URL of this planning application in the planning register.

Planning application type

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a planning-application-type field.

The Planning application planning-application-type field MUST be a text value.

The reference code for the type of planning application (for example "full-planning-permission")

planning-application-type dataset

Planning decision

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a planning-decision field.

The Planning application planning-decision field MUST be a text value.

The reference code for the planning decision made (for example "pending" or "permission-in-principle")

planning-decision dataset

Planning decision type

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a planning-decision-type field.

The Planning application planning-decision-type field MUST be a text value.

The reference code for the way the decision was made (for example "committee")

planning-decision-type dataset

Notes

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a notes field.

The Planning application notes field MUST be a text value.

Optional notes text

Organisation

Each Planning application entry MAY contain an organisation field.

The Planning application organisation field MUST be a reference value.

The reference code for the organisation responsible for processing the planning application

Entry date

Each Planning application entry MAY contain an entry-date field.

The Planning application entry-date field MUST be a datetime value.

The date this data was created or last updated

Start date

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a start-date field.

The Planning application start-date field MUST be a datetime value.

The date the planning application was submitted

Decision date

Each Planning application entry MAY contain a decision-date field.

The Planning application decision-date field MUST be a datetime value.

The date the planning application was decided upon

End date

Each Planning application entry MAY contain an end-date field.

The Planning application end-date field MUST be a datetime value.

The date the planning application was withdrawn or removed from the register

Planning application log

The stages a planning application has gone through.

The Planning application log dataset contain at least one entry for each Planning application log for which the data provider is the responsible authority.

Planning application log fields

Reference

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain a reference field.

The Planning application log reference field MUST be a reference value.

The reference for the planning application status (for example, "27/AP/9032/FULL")

Planning application

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain a planning-application field.

The Planning application log planning-application field MUST be a text value.

The planning application reference (for example, "27/AP/9032")

Planning application status

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain a planning-application-status field.

The Planning application log planning-application-status field MUST be a text value.

The reference code for the change of planning application status (for example "validated", "decided" or "under-appeal")

planning-application-status dataset

Documentation URL

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain a documentation-url field.

The Planning application log documentation-url field MUST be a URL value.

The URL for a web page where a user can see the change in the planning application status

Document URL

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain a document-url field.

The Planning application log document-url field MUST be a URL value.

The URL for a document which evidences the change in the planning application status

Notes

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain a notes field.

The Planning application log notes field MUST be a text value.

Optional notes text

Organisation

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain an organisation field.

The Planning application log organisation field MUST be a reference value.

The code for the organisation responsible for processing the application

Event date

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain an event-date field.

The Planning application log event-date field MUST be a datetime value.

The date this event happened or the change in status applies from

Entry date

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain an entry-date field.

The Planning application log entry-date field MUST be a datetime value.

The date this data was created or last updated

Start date

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain a start-date field.

The Planning application log start-date field MUST be a datetime value.

The date this fact was true from

End date

Each Planning application log entry MAY contain an end-date field.

The Planning application log end-date field MUST be a datetime value.

The date this change of event no longer applies. This is the same as the start-date in case of an error

Planning application document

.

The Planning application document dataset contain at least one entry for each Planning application document for which the data provider is the responsible authority.

Planning application document fields

Reference

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain a reference field.

The Planning application document reference field MUST be a reference value.

An unique identifier for the document (for example, "27/AP/9032/DOC/3")

Name

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain a name field.

The Planning application document name field MUST be a text value.

The name of this document

Description

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain a description field.

The Planning application document description field MUST be a text value.

Brief description of this document

Planning application

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain a planning-application field.

The Planning application document planning-application field MUST be a text value.

The planning application reference (for example, "27/AP/9032")

Document type

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain a document-type field.

The Planning application document document-type field MUST be a text value.

The code for this document type (for example "proposed-plan")

Documentation URL

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain a documentation-url field.

The Planning application document documentation-url field MUST be a URL value.

The webpage where you can find this document

Document URL

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain a document-url field.

The Planning application document document-url field MUST be a URL value.

The URL of the actual document

Notes

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain a notes field.

The Planning application document notes field MUST be a text value.

Optional notes

Organisation

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain an organisation field.

The Planning application document organisation field MUST be a reference value.

The code for the responsible organisation (for example, local-authority-eng:BST)

Entry date

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain an entry-date field.

The Planning application document entry-date field MUST be a datetime value.

The date this data was created or last updated

Start date

Each Planning application document entry MAY contain a start-date field.

The Planning application document start-date field MUST be a datetime value.

The date the document was published

Fieldtypes

Reference

The reference MAY be used to refer to the entity by other data.

A reference value MUST be either a [CURIE] or the reference part of a [CURIE] identifier.

A reference SHOULD be persistent. A reference SHOULD be used by the data provider to identify the same entity in the future.

A reference SHOULD NOT be used to refer to a different entity in the future.

Where a reference has been used to refer to two different entities, add a year or other text to disambiguate the references, for example use 'CA01' and 'CA01/2022' rather than just 'CA01' for two different conservation areas.

A reference SHOULD be short and meaningful to a user.

A good reference is short, meaningful and easily read out loud by a user. It should be something you already use, such as the reference number sent in letters, asked for in forms, a section reference in documents, the significant part of the URL for an entity (its "furl" or "slug"), or a fragment identifier (anchor) in your source documentation web page.

Datetime

Dates MUST conform to [ISO8601] following the [Open Standards for government guidance [formatting-dates-and-times-in-data].

A date value SHOULD be blank if it is unknown.

The date MAY just contain the year 'YYYY' if only the year is known, or 'YYYY-MM' if only the year and month is known.

Geometry

A geometry field MAY be eiher a single POLYGON or MULTIPOLYGON value.

When using Comma Separated Value (CSV), the geometry SHOULD be encoded as Well Known Text [WKT].

All points SHOULD be either in the [WGS84] (EPSG::4326) or [ETRS89] (EPSG::4258) coordinate reference system following the [Open Standards for government] guidance [exchange-of-location-point].

Boundaries provided by this dataset are intended to be used as an index. Positions calculated by the WGS84 and ETRS89 systems can currently deviate by half a metre for points within England. Survey data should be used where more precision is needed.

Coordinate values should be 6 or fewer decimal places.

Integer

Reference CSV on the web and xs:decimal

Markdown

Reference [govspeak-markdown]

URL

Reference [RFC3986] and [URL-interoperability]

Text

All text fields MUST be encoded in UTF-8 [RFC3629] following the [Open Standards for government] guidance [encoding-characters].

Historical data

Removing historical data can reduce the trust a user places in the quality of the data. There are also many uses for historical documents, data and material information in planning, such as when developing an older property, processing an appeal, and monitoring the delivery of housing on older brownfield land, and when collecting evidence for plan-making.

Entries SHOULD NOT be changed or removed from the data except to correct a mistake, or for the purposes of redacting personal or otherwise sensitive information.

An entity SHOULD be updated by adding another entry to the data with the same reference and a newer entry-date.

Entries SHOULD be ordered within a dataset by the entry-date value, with older entries appearing before later entries.

The end-date field should be used to indicate when an entity is no longer applicable.

Data file formats

Data MUST be provided in at least one of the following file formats:

The preferred format for geospatial data is GeoJSON.

Tabular data SHOULD be provided as (CSV) [RFC4180] following the [Open Standards for government] guidance [tabular-data-standard].

Field names

The case and punctuation used in field names is insignificant, meaning 'StartDate', 'Start Date' 'START_DATE' and 'start.date', are all valid ways of naming the 'start-date' field.

A field name MAY be treated as being case insensitive.

A non-alphanumeric character in a field name MAY be ignored.

Evolution

Guidance for how the specification may evolve in a similar way to HTML. Whilst the specification document is versioned, the data may evolves following three principles:
  1. The data may contain additional fields in the future version.
  2. Processors of this version should ignore any fields they aren't expecting.
  3. Fields in this specification may be deprecated in a future version, but won't be removed, or change their semantic meaning.

Extensibility

Guidance for how we support local variance and collecting data from existing sources.

Endpoint

Your data must be on a URL the public can access. We collect the latest data from there every day. We call this the ‘endpoint URL’.

Endpoints typically fall into 1 of the following 2 categories:

  • a file hosted on your web server — these will usually be URLs which end in something like .json or .csv
  • a live feed of the data from an API — these are usually hosted by your GIS (Geographic Information System) software or open data platform

Whenever your data changes, update it in the endpoint URL. Your endpoint URL should remain the same, do not change it when you make updates.

Explain support of periodic dated publications, and how we support feeds of data for collecting large datasets which change frequently.

Examples

Complete examples

Security and privacy considerations

There is a risk of people's names or other personally identifiable information appearing in the data, in particular notes, description and other text fields. It is the responsibility of the data provider to review and redact such information before publication.

The [OGL3] licence does not cover personal data in the Information.

The data MUST NOT contain any personal or sensitive information, unless explicitly required by this specification, or legislation.

Colophon

This document is © Crown Copyright and available under the Open Government Licence version 3 licence.

References

Normative references

[RFC2119]
Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels. IETF Best Current Practice. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2119
[RFC8174]
Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in [RFC2119] Key Words. IETF Best Current Practice. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8174
[RFC3629]
UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646. IETF Internet Standard. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3629
[RFC4180]
Common Format and MIME Type for Comma-Separated Values (CSV) Files. IETF Informational. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4180
[RFC7946]
The GeoJSON Format. Proposed Standard. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7946
[RFC3339]
Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps. IETF Proposed Standard. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3339
[RFC3986]
IETF Standard. Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3986
[URI-Fragment]
Section 3.5 of [RFC3986] Fragment Identifier of a URI https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3986#section-3.5
[tabular-metadata]
Metadata Vocabulary for Tabular Data. W3C Recommendation. https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/REC-tabular-metadata-20151217/
[tabular-data-model]
Model for Tabular Data and Metadata on the Web. W3C Recommendation. https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/REC-tabular-data-model-20151217
[CURIE]
CURIE Syntax 1.0 A syntax for expressing Compact URIs. W3C Working Group Note. https://www.w3.org/TR/2010/NOTE-curie-20101216/
[GML]
Geography Markup Language (GML). Open Geospatial Consortium standard (ISO 19136-1:2020). https://www.ogc.org/standards/gml
[KML]
OGC KML 2.3. Open Geospatial Consortium standard (12-007r2). http://www.opengis.net/doc/IS/kml/2.3
[Geopackage]
OGC Geopackage 1,4 Open Geospatial Consortium standard (12-128r19). http://www.opengis.net/doc/IS/geopackage/1.4
[WGS84]
National Imagery and Mapping Agency, "Department of Defense World Geodetic System 1984: Its Definition and Relationships with Local Geodetic Systems", Third Edition, 1984. The code for this standard in the European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG) Registry is [EPSG::4326]. https://nsgreg.nga.mil/doc/view?i=4085
[ETRS89]
The European Terrestrial Reference System 89 (ETRS89) The code for this standard in the European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG) Registry is [EPSG::4258]. http://etrs89.ensg.ign.fr/
[WKT]
OGC Well-known text (WKT) as defined by ISO/IEC 13249-3:2016. https://www.iso.org/standard/60343.html
[ISO8601]
Data elements and interchange formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times", ISO 8601:1988(E), International Organization for Standardization, June, 1988.
[OGL3]
Open Government Licence for public sector information. Version 3. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
[crown-copyright]
Crown copyright. Section 163 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 as works made by officers or servants of the Crown in the course of their duties. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/re-using-public-sector-information/uk-government-licensing-framework/crown-copyright/

Informative references

[LURA]
Levelling-up and Regeneration Act. Originated in the House of Commons, Session 2022-23. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/55/enacted
[process]
Ministry for Housing, Communities & Local Government planning data standards design process (service under development). https://design.planning.data.gov.uk
[govspeak-markdown]
How to publish on GOV.UK: Govspeak Markdown. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-publish-on-gov-uk/markdown
[open-standards-for-government]
Government Digital Service and Central Digital and Data Office. Open standards for government
[encoding-characters]
Encoding characters Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/cross-platform-character-encoding-profile
[persistent-resolvable-identifiers]
Persistent resolvable identifiers. Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/persistent-resolvable-identifiers
[formatting-dates-and-times-in-data]
Formatting dates and times in data. Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/date-times-and-time-stamps-standard
[publishing-government-documents]
Publishing government documents. Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/viewing-government-documents
[exchange-of-location-point]
Exchange of location point. Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/exchange-of-location-point
[tabular-data-standard]
Tabular data standard. Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/recommended-open-standards-for-government/tabular-data-standard
[using-csv]
Using CSV file format. Central Digital and Data Office guidance. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-csv-file-format
[csv-on-the-web]
CSV on the Web: A Primer. W3C Working Group Note. https://www.w3.org/TR/tabular-data-primer/
[EPSG::4326]
World Geodetic System 1984 [WGS84] EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset. https://epsg.io/4326
[EPSG::4258]
The European Terrestrial Reference System 89 [ETRS89] EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset. https://epsg.io/4326
[GDAL]
GDAL. Open Source Geospatial Foundation. https://gdal.org/
[TAB]
MapInfo TAB format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapInfo_TAB_format
[Shapefile]
ESRI Shapefile format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile
[ZIP]
ZIP format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_(file_format)
[HTML]
WHATWG HTML. Living Standard. https://html.spec.whatwg.org/
[URL-interoperability]
WHATWG URL. Living Standard. Interoperability of URL with URI and IRI values. https://url.spec.whatwg.org/

Previous versions

These specifications are living documents. When we make material changes to the data structure we update the version number.

Previous versions of the planning-application-decision specification are: