How to Find Plumbing Jobs on Council Planning Portals

I spent about a month pulling planning applications by hand before I gave up and automated the whole thing. The first postcode I tested had fourteen approved extensions in a single month - fourteen homeowners about to spend real money on building work that almost always needs a plumber. Not one of them had contacted a plumber yet. They were sitting in a free, public council database that anyone could search, and nobody in the trade was looking.

That's the opportunity in a nutshell. Every UK council publishes its planning decisions publicly, for free. Approved extensions, loft conversions, garage conversions and new builds are all there, searchable by area and date. The plumber who reaches those homeowners first - before they've Googled anyone - wins the job without competing on price. This post is the exact manual process for doing it yourself.

Why Planning Portals Beat Paid Lead Sites

Here's my honest opinion, and most lead-generation companies won't like it: paying for shared leads on Checkatrade, Bark or MyBuilder is one of the worst ways to grow a plumbing business when this exists for nothing. On those platforms you're paying to compete with four or five other plumbers for the same job, racing to the bottom on price. A planning application is the opposite - it's a warm prospect nobody else has contacted, reached before the comparison shopping even starts.

Let me put rough numbers on it. Say your area produces 12 plumbing-relevant approvals a month within a sensible radius. You won't win them all - most people won't reply to a letter. But the conversion maths still works out uncomfortable when you see it laid out.

	Per month	Per year
Relevant approvals in your area	12	144
Letters you send	12	144
Homeowners who respond (~8%)	~1	~11
Jobs won (half of responses)	~0.5	~5-6
Revenue at £2,500 avg extension job	-	£13,000+

Five or six extra project jobs a year from a channel that costs you stamps and an hour a week. That's not a rounding error - that's a genuine second income stream most plumbers never touch.

Step 1: Find Your Council's Planning Portal

Search "[your council name] planning applications" - for example "Glasgow City Council planning applications". Every council has a public planning register online. Most run on a system called Idox Public Access (you'll recognise it - a fairly dated blue-and-grey search interface), and a handful use Northgate or similar. They all do the same job: let you search applications by area, date and status.

If you cover more than one council area, bookmark each one. A plumber in central Scotland might be checking three or four neighbouring councils; a city plumber might only need one.

Step 2: Search for Recently Approved Applications

Use the advanced search (sometimes called "weekly lists" or "decided applications"). The filters that matter:

• Decision date - set it to the last week or two. You want fresh approvals, not applications from six months ago.
• Decision / status - filter to "Granted", "Approved" or "Permission Granted". Ignore anything pending, withdrawn or refused.
• Application type - "Householder" catches most extensions and loft conversions. "Full" catches new builds and larger works.

Run the search and you'll get a list of every approved application in your area for that period, each with an address, a description, and a decision date. That description is the gold - it tells you what's being built.

Step 3: Filter for the Plumbing-Relevant Ones

Not every approval needs a plumber. Read the description on each and keep the ones that clearly involve water, waste or heating. The reliable winners:

• Rear and side extensions - almost always a new or moved kitchen, utility or downstairs WC. Highest volume.
• Loft conversions - nearly always an en-suite or bathroom, which means new supply, waste and soil-stack work.
• Garage and outbuilding conversions - often a WC, basin or kitchenette going in for the first time.
• New dwellings - full first and second-fix plumbing. Higher value, more competition.

Skip the ones that won't need you - fences, decking, dropped kerbs, signage, tree works. If you're not sure, the application documents (usually downloadable) show the floor plans. A new bathroom or kitchen on a plan is your signal. If you want the fuller breakdown of what each job type actually involves, I wrote about that in what a planning application is and why plumbers should care.

Step 4: Write to the Homeowner

Planning applications list the site address but not a phone number, so the move is a physical letter. Keep it to one side of A4, reference the specific work that's just been approved (this proves you're not spamming), introduce yourself as a local plumber, mention you're Gas Safe registered, and make it easy to get a quote. No hard sell. A letter that clearly took thirty seconds to personalise beats a glossy generic flyer every time.

Posting to an address in a public planning register is completely legitimate business post under UK marketing rules - no prior consent is needed for physical mail. Include a line offering to not contact them again and you're on solid ground.

Step 5: Time It Right

The sweet spot is roughly one to three weeks after approval. Too early and the homeowner is still finalising architects and builders and isn't thinking about trades. Too late - more than eight or ten weeks - and they've usually lined up their plumber already. Because applications sit in the portal for a while before anyone acts on them, checking recent approvals once a week gives you a steady, consistent stream rather than a one-off scramble.

What the Best Plumbers Do About It

The plumbers who win at this treat it as a weekly habit, not a one-off. Fifteen minutes every Monday: pull the week's approvals, filter for the relevant ones, personalise a letter or two, post them. Done consistently, it builds a pipeline of higher-value project work - extensions and lofts, not just emergency callouts - running quietly in the background while everyone else fights over paid leads.

The catch is the "consistently" part. Doing it by hand every single week, across multiple council portals, is exactly the kind of admin that slips when you're busy on the tools. That's the reason I stopped doing it manually and started building the Planning Leads tool - to do the searching and filtering automatically and drop a ready-to-send digest in your inbox every week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are council planning portals really free to use?

Yes. Every UK council is legally required to publish its planning register publicly. You can search approved applications by area and date at no cost, with no account needed to view them. The address, applicant name, project description and decision date are all public record.

How long does it take to search a council portal each week?

Once you know your way around the advanced search, about 10-15 minutes per council to pull and filter a week's approvals. The slow part is doing it across several councils and personalising the letters - which is where it becomes a genuine time commitment if you cover a wide area.

Do I need permission to write to homeowners from a planning application?

Writing to an address listed in a public planning register is legitimate business outreach. The information is published specifically because planning decisions are a matter of public record. Keep it professional, reference only the address and the approved project, and include a clear opt-out. Standard GDPR-compliant direct mail practice applies.

Which application types are most worth chasing?

Rear and side extensions are the highest-volume and almost always involve plumbing. Loft conversions regularly add an en-suite. Garage conversions often need a WC and basin. New builds are higher value but more competitive. Start with extensions and lofts - they'll make up most of your leads.

Is this worth doing if I'm already busy?

Planning outreach builds a pipeline of planned, higher-margin project work alongside your reactive callouts. Even one or two conversions a month justify the effort, because extension and loft jobs are worth far more than an emergency tap change. It's also worth starting now while the channel is still largely unused in the trade - see also how UK plumbers can find jobs before anyone else does.

Planning application outreach is still genuinely uncommon. The lane is wide open. Most plumbers who hear about it say "that's a good idea" and do nothing. The ones who act now will have a running head start on every other plumber in their area by the time it becomes common practice - and it will. We're building the automated version so you don't have to do the searching and filtering by hand every week. Join the waitlist and be among the first to use it when it launches: plumberproai.co.uk/planning-leads

Written by Alexander McVicar