Planning Portal Reviews 29

That I had my advisory call in mid-October, and have only now - in late March - seen the application which it discussed bear fruit, indicates how protracted and stressful the planning process can be. I don't however believe that this is any reflection on the portal personnel, or the council planners, but only emphasises the benefits of enlisting their support. My recourse to the Guidance Service cost a fraction of the more tailored advice that was available locally, and it left even a novice like myself with - as it turned out - everything that was necessary for a successful application.

Absolute waste of time and money, contacted the planing portal for advice on a motorbike storage shed at side of house. Representative (who I will not name here) about as rude, unhelpful and condescending as she could possibly be.

On top of this called late, had none of the images, plans and drawing I had sent prior to the appointment available. When invited to send to her during the discussion, the attachments were removed by their IT. At this stage she told me to ask for my money back !

As for the service itself, you can find the same information online, they won’t put anything in writing, and will not be held accountable for their advice if incorrect !

Feedback says it all really !

Having always carried out the submissions myself, I thought that using the Portal would result in the Application being registered & validation quicker, rather than sitting in an 'in' tray.
Oh! was I disappointed, took just as long as a manual submission with the same delay, charged a whopping £85.00 service charge & taking over a hour to carry out the task. If you make an error & need to alter the submission, it is not possible - you have to repeat the process & again pay the whole fee.
Submit it yourself, save the aggravation, using the local Councils validation list -- it is not difficult. To cap it all the admin charge mainly goes to a private company, rather than all to the LA/government.

Arsalan & Kriti were extremely helpful & and proactice. Arslan gave very detailed explanation on his visit, he was very professional. The report was very detailed and helpful. Kriti was extremely quick in getting report to me and very supportive throughout the whole process. Highly recommended!

Overcharged on crefit card, called three times to request refund, every time agent just hung up as soon as I said my credit card had been overcharged.

Very shady organisation - has been escalated to my credit card company as fraud.

The first problem is that I am a clearly a humble supplicant begging a blessing from an all-powerful planning department. There is a conceit that 'public servants' are there to help, but of course they know and act as if it's the other way round.
So I was firmly directed by the local authority website to use the Planning Portal to submit my application (for Lawful Development Certificates). I didn't realise there was another option, and I didn't realise they were a private company.
I had such a struggle to upload files or find what to include, because there was no specific dedicated 'form' for what I was applying for. There was no layman's language or explanation. I am applying for two LDCs at my property, and the help desk had no idea if it needed one combined submission or two separate ones. The fee calculation system was like a time trip to Stalin's USSR. I have paid £680 and have absolutely no idea if it's the correct amount... but I do know the Planning Portal got £85 of it.
I really want to make a stink about my planning department directing me to submit via Planning Portal, but as I said at the start: I don't want to poke the bear.

If I could give zero stars I would.
Poor information provided on an 8 minute call. The member of staff had little knowledge to offer.
SCAM

I wish I had read these reviews before paying for their so-called “Planning Consultation.”

I expected a qualified planner to review our extension plans and clarify whether our house extension fell under Permitted Development or needed full planning. What we got instead was a rushed 25-minute call with an adviser - Ms Kiran Purewal - who clearly hadn’t reviewed any of our material, spoke in vague generalities, and gave us incorrect advice - LATER CONTRADICTED BY THE LOCAL AUTHORITY ITSELF! We even provided documents (floor plans etc.) prior to the call to ensure we receive bespoke guidance but I doubt they were reviewed.

We were explicitly told that our extension plans were within PD. This turned out to be wrong. When challenged, the Planning Portal rewrote the record and claimed they had advised the opposite - something both of us on the call can categorically disprove.

Worse still, there is no written summary or audio record of the consultation, so they can rewrite history at will and refuse refunds. It’s Kafkaesque: you pay for “expert guidance,” get misinformation, then they deny what was said and hide behind small print and generic mailboxes so there’s no accountable individual to speak to. They operate as an unregulated private company masquerading as an official government service, exploiting public trust in the planning system.

After checking reviews, I now realise this is not an isolated case. The Trustpilot rating speaks for itself. Repeated patterns: inaccurate advice, unqualified call-handlers, refusal to refund, and stock replies about “reasonable care and skill.” Dozens of users describe the same experience - paying for guidance that adds confusion, not clarity.

This is not a professional advisory service. It’s a lightly disguised referral funnel and a monopoly-backed cash extraction scheme that thrives on public misunderstanding. Local authorities’ planning officers themselves quietly acknowledge that the “Planning Portal advice service” is not official, authoritative or indeed reliable.

If you value accuracy, accountability, or even basic integrity, go directly to your local planning authority or hire a qualified planning consultant. This service should not be trusted with anything beyond uploading PDFs.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

I booked a paid consultation through the portal to get advice on installing a storage container on the edge of a sports field. Unfortunately, the experience fell short of expectations. The adviser openly admitted not knowing the specific planning regulations, describing them as a 200-page specialist document she hadn’t read.

Her initial suggestion was that pre-approval might be suitable, but she wasn’t sure it would cover my case. She then defaulted to recommending a full planning application without providing any real reasoning or tailored guidance. For £114, I expected clear, expert advice — but I left with more uncertainty than when I started.

The call, scheduled for 30 minutes, ended almost 20 minutes early, which only added to the feeling that my query wasn’t given the time or effort it deserved. Disappointing overall.

Terrible, I’m really not sure what you’re paying the planning portal £85 for! they literally do nothing with your planning application other than submit it to the local council. I submitted an “invalid” application to my local council through them even after paying an additional £75 for a 30 minute call. I requested to just cancel my whole application it was ridiculous. I logged a complaint and a Paul jones has been responding, basically fobbed me off stating “I had agreed to their terms and services” that they handled my planning application with “ reasonable care and skill”, I’m not being funny but if there was all this “skill and care”, why was my application so miserably invalid?. There criminals, take your £85 fee and run with it. Your best off going direct to the local council, these folks add zero tangible value.

Amazing and such clear advice from Jazmine. Highly recommend. Unlike our local planning authority, Jazmine worked for us rather than against us. She provided clear and jargon free advice about how to move forward with our project, which we now feel excited about rather than daunted by. She told us all the things we could do rather than focusing on all the things we can't do. Living in a national park, she tailored the advice and went above and beyond to make sure we got what we wanted out of the call. I wish we'd used this service long before! Thank you Jasmine. She's an asset to your service.

Applied for planning through the planning portal. They came back a month later saying that he fee was actually much higher than we paid and we needed to pay more, which we couldn’t afford. We withdrew our planning request but the planning portal didn’t refund their £80 ‘fee’ (eventhough the application didn’t go through). Spoke to the council and they said it’s a planning portal conversation, planning portal said it’s nothing to do with them and they can’t refund (eventhough they took the money). Overall, awful service, awful customer support and refusing to refund fee for a service that wasn’t used? Avoid

I spoke to Faith (for the second time) and found her to be very helpful and well informed about my question around AC installation on a locally listed house in a conservation area in London. She had sight of all my previous planning applications and council engagements, I felt like the information I was getting was informed and relevant. I now have a list of requirements to confirm and work with, so I feel that it was a positive and useful exercise. Only gave four stars because I don't yet know exactly what we're hoping to install and how, so we can't conclude things immediately.

John really helped my wife and I explained everything in great detail was very informative.

Had a very helpful 1/2hr call (£72) to walk me through if I could get planning permission or not and the process to follow to get permission. Having spent hours on line trying to understand it to then speak with a really helpful chap called John who was so easy to speak with, so helpful cant thank him enough.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I booked the Planning call, but I was genuinely impressed. The advisor I spoke to was clear, and genuinely helpful cut through the noise and focused on what mattered. Solid solid advice that helped me understand exactly how to approach my project.

I echo the other comments and feedback here. They DO NOT provide any advice and take a condescending attitude and just repeat they don't offer advice - if you get a chance to actually ask a question. Firstly they were late, then the first 2 minutes I was patronizingly explained my property was in a preservation area even though my query had nothing to do with that. I then tried to ask my questions and was cut off at every point with "we don't give advice". I paid £72 for 8 minutes for absolutely nothing. This is nothing more than a SCAM to prey on people who are inexperienced with the planning application process. Use ChatGPT for free which will give you answers to most questions you may have regarding Planning Applications, for anything else DO NOT use this service. It's also disappointing that Local Authority Planning and Building Control highlight this as a general advice service.

The planning portal is now very expensive to use but doesn't even work properly.

I gave all the details for the type of application I was making and it told me what forms I needed to complete. It missed two essential forms and my application was invalid. This is just basic stuff and should be the very least the portal service offers, it adds even more delay to a local authority planning service that is barely functioning as it it

Absolute complete waste of time
Do not bother. Complete waste of money. Get no more information than find online or local council site. They are not willing to talk you through or find solutions. Just tell you - planning needed, pay the fee. I was on the phone for less than 10 minutes but had to pay over £100 for that. Do not bother or use.

After spending ~1.5 hours on my application I made a minor change to the title to make it more descriptive (which the portal readily allows you to do) then the entire application was lost and no longer accessible.
I restarted the application from scratch, and got to the part where it asks you to use the Requestaplan tool to specify a plan. After persevering for another ~1 hour I eventually gave up as the Requestaplan tool is terrible, as evidenced by its 100% one star trustpilot reviews.
I phoned the council asking them what to do and they recommended that I use use downloadable forms rather than the planning portal.
Based on my experience the planning portal cannot be used for anything useful (either looking up information or submitting a planning request). To save every ones time it should be taken down and replaced which something that is fit for purpose.