Planning Application Document Requirements Checker

- Applicants can commission unnecessary reports because they cannot distinguish mandatory, conditional and locally requested information. - Missing a required statement or assessment can make an application invalid before substantive assessment starts. - Architects and small agents spend unbillable time interpreting local lists that differ between authorities. - Authorities then spend officer time checking completeness and issuing avoidable validation correspondence.

The paying user is most likely an architect, architectural technologist, small planning practice or SME developer rather than a homeowner. An enterprise/API buyer could be a submission portal, design platform or planning consultancy that wants to standardise pre-submission checks.

The pain and willingness to automate are validated, but the category is no longer empty. A generic checker is weak; the product needs authoritative local-rule coverage, change history and direct integration into the applicant's document workflow.

Choose 10 LPAs with materially different validation lists and test 100 historic applications. Measure precision/recall for required documents and the share of invalidation reasons the checker would have prevented. Do not charge professional users until false negatives on mandatory documents are very rare.

Defensibility requires a continuously versioned local-requirements knowledge base, spatial triggers, application-type logic and a proof trail showing the exact source behind every requirement. Workflow integrations into CAD/document tools could be more durable than a website checker.

Increase first-time-valid submissions, reduce wasted consultant effort and give applicants earlier cost certainty over specialist reports.

Directly evidenced — medium confidence.

- Paid test offer: Paid authority or developer pilot: £10,000–£25,000 £25–£75 per application for self-serve; £99–£299/month professional plan; API pricing for portals and practices. Because active competitors exist, self-serve pricing should start closer to £20-£60 per application or £50-£150/month for small practices. Enterprise/API pricing becomes credible only after broad LPA coverage and accuracy are proven.

Evidence basis: Agile AI Planning Validator (£15,000–£60,000 per licence) is the closest verified direct anchor used here. Its buyer, duration and scope are not assumed to be identical; implementation is separated where the opportunity requires integration, assurance or managed delivery.

Ask one planning authority, developer or planning consultancy with a live case pipeline to fund a paid test of Planning Application Document Requirements Checker lasting 8–12 weeks, using an opening price of £10,000–£25,000 and covering 20 live applications, sites, conditions or evidence packs from one planning workflow. Paid scope: A postcode-and-proposal checker that produces a defensible document schedule with the exact reason, policy trigger and local requirement for each item. Charge by authority, professional team, development site or assessed case and compare the fee with planning-officer and consultant time, avoidable invalid submissions and repeated evidence assembly. Measure validation time, missing-document rate, rework, officer overrides, applicant resubmissions and decision lead time. Continue only if handling or rework falls by at least 25%, at least 90% of required evidence is correctly identified and no material planning issue is suppressed. Stop or reprice if experienced officers find material false assurance, the workflow does not beat current practice or the buyer will not renew.

Raise above 80 if a practice demonstrates lower invalidation/rework and integrates the checker into every submission. Reduce below 60 if government/Planning Portal exposes authoritative machine-readable local requirements at no cost.