Planda Portal Product Update: August Edition

A lot has shipped since the last update. New application types, a new way to pay, email signatures, a loyalty card, and a first look at something we think will change how planning professionals work with AI. Big things happening in the planning world!

Three new application types

Non-Material Amendments are now supported. If you need to make a minor change to an approved permission, you can submit directly through Planda Portal without workarounds.

Listed Building Consent is now available as a standalone application type.

We're continuing to expand the application types available and will keep rolling out more over the coming months. Send us a message if you're looking for something in particular, we're here to listen!

New ways to pay

We've overhauled checkout in a few meaningful ways.

Pay by Bank is now live at checkout alongside card payment. If you or your clients prefer bank transfer, BACS is also available for applications under £1,000: clients paying via share link will see both options.

Email signatures

You can now set a personal email signature on messages sent through Planda Portal. Go to your Account > Personal Details to set it up. It takes thirty seconds and makes a noticeable difference to how your outgoing correspondence looks.

Loyalty card: 9 applications, £150

We've replaced the existing credits scheme with something more substantial. Submit 9 qualifying paid applications within 4 months of joining and earn £150 by bank transfer. The stamp card lives on your dashboard and updates automatically as applications go through. It's available for new users, subject to terms and conditions.

Partner API

Ever wanted to automate creating a planning application? Us too. If you're building an integration or want to connect Planda to tools you already use, check it out. Planda Portal organisation owners and admins can now create, manage, and revoke their own API keys directly from Account > Organisations. The API lets other platforms and tools connect to Planda Portal directly: create draft applications programmatically, list existing ones, and keep your workflow in sync. Each of Resi's 2000+ annual planning applications are now drafted with approximately a 10 minute time saving. Send us a message if you need a hand with setting this up, or want to find out more.

Connecting AI tools directly to Planda Portal

We've built an MCP server for Planda Portal, which is a standard interface that lets AI tools like Claude connect directly to your account.You are now able to create, list, and update draft applications from within Claude Desktop or Claude Code, without switching tabs or re-entering anything.

This opens up workflows that aren't possible with any other planning platform right now, setting you up for time saving, and efficiency gaining. Read about how to set it up here.

On the council side

Last month we presented at the ALBPO meetup in Tower Hamlets, the event that brings together planning technicians from across every London council. The more councils understand what we're building and how it works on their end, the better the experience gets for you on yours. It was great meeting representatives from councils again and talk about what technology does, and can do, in the sector.

Edit application

This one has been your most-requested feature, and it's now live.

When a council marks your application as invalid, you can now fix it directly in Planda Portal - updating documents, forms, the site address, and application type - without starting from scratch. Ava extracts the invalid reasons from the council's letter and surfaces them against the relevant sections so you know exactly what needs attention. Once you've made changes, you review a summary and resubmit.

What's next

More improvements to our mapping tool, more flexibility on managing your applications and more features you and your team has been requesting us.

As always, if you've got feedback, a feature request, or something isn't working quite the way you'd expect, let us know. We read every message, and many of the updates you see here started as customer suggestions.