Work on planning applications inside ChatGPT or Claude

Connect your Planda Portal account and your assistant can create a draft, fill in the forms as you talk, tell you what is still missing, check your uploaded drawings, and show council correspondence when you ask. Anything that needs a signature, a payment, or a final submit still happens in Planda Portal — your assistant can give you a direct link to the right page when you get there.

Before you start

You need a Planda Portal account. If you don't have one yet, sign up at app.plandaportal.co.uk. Drafting is free; you only pay when you submit.

The connection uses your normal Planda Portal login. You never give ChatGPT or Claude your password directly. You sign in on our page, approve the connection, and can revoke it at any time.

Connect in ChatGPT

1. Open ChatGPT on the web or in the desktop app and open the Plugins directory.

2. Search for Planda Portal, open its details and select the + button to install it.

3. When prompted to connect your account, sign in on the Planda Portal page and approve the connection. This may happen during installation or when you first use the plugin.

4. Start a new chat, type @ and select Planda Portal, then ask what you'd like to do.

If you use ChatGPT in a managed workspace, an administrator may need to allow the plugin and its connection first. Installing the plugin and authorising access to your Planda Portal account are separate steps. See ChatGPT's plugin guide for the current interface.

Connect in Claude

1. Open Claude on the web or in the desktop app and go to Settings, then Connectors.

2. Choose Browse connectors, search for Planda Portal and click Connect.

3. Sign in on the Planda Portal page that opens and approve the connection.

4. In any new chat, Planda Portal is now available. Claude will use it when your request involves your applications.

If you're on a Claude Team or Enterprise plan, an administrator may need to enable Planda Portal for your organisation first. Ask them to add it from the connector directory.

Try these prompts

• "List my Planda Portal applications and their statuses."

• "Show applications that require action."

• "Create a draft planning application for a single-storey rear extension at 12 Example Road, HA8 7FX."

• "What is still missing on my draft before I can submit it?"

• "Which of my applications have council emails waiting for a reply?"

• "What has the council approved or refused near this address?"

What your assistant can do

Start an application

Give it the site address and a sentence about the works. It finds the address, works out which council you'll be applying to, and creates a draft in your account.

Fill in the forms

Instead of working through every field, answer questions in conversation. The assistant saves your answers as you go and checks what is still outstanding, section by section. It is instructed to ask for missing factual information rather than invent answers. AI can still make mistakes, so review the saved answers before relying on them. Legal declarations remain yours to complete in the portal.

Handle documents

Upload plans and drawings in Planda Portal, then ask your assistant which required documents are still missing and what validation checks have reported. If a drawing fails a check (no scale bar, for example), the assistant can explain what needs fixing. Uploading a file to ChatGPT does not automatically attach it to your planning application. Direct uploads depend on the assistant's file-transfer capabilities; when those aren't available, it can link you to the portal's Documents step. Validation can take a little time after an upload.

Keep track

Ask for the status of any application, its submission history, or what changed last time you edited it.

Fix a submitted application

If the council returns your application as invalid, or you want to make a voluntary change after submitting, the assistant can open an edit round, make the changes and mark each council request as resolved. You review and send the round in the portal.

Reply to the council

See which council emails are waiting for a reply and draft the response. The assistant can also send a reply directly through Planda Portal without you opening the portal. It is instructed to show you the council name, subject, and full message and obtain your explicit approval before using the send tool. Once that tool runs, the email is sent immediately. If you only want a draft, say "draft this in chat; do not send". To include attachments, use the portal's Messages tab.

Check the neighbourhood

Search published planning decisions near a site to see what the council has previously approved or refused there. Each successful search uses one search from your monthly allowance, including follow-up searches to widen or refine the results.

For teams

Tag applications, apply a tag to several at once, and see how work is split across your team.

What stays in Planda Portal

Some steps always happen on our site, and your assistant will give you a direct link to them:

• Drawing or confirming the location plan

• Reviewing the full application before submission

• Declarations and payment

• Sending an edit round to the council

• Submitting the application

The connector cannot make payments, submit an application, or send an edit round. Council email replies are different: the assistant can send those directly, as described above. Nearby planning searches use your monthly search allowance but do not make a payment.

Privacy and permissions

The connector can only see the applications your connected Planda Portal account can see, within the permissions you approve. Tools are labelled to distinguish reads from changes and external actions, but those labels are not a separate confirmation screen. In ChatGPT, whether you see a confirmation prompt depends on your permissions and workspace settings: reads may prompt, and authorised changes may run without another prompt. Review those settings before use. The council-reply tool's instructions require explicit approval of the message before sending.

We log which tools are used so we can support you and improve the service. The connector does not receive your full ChatGPT or Claude conversation history. It does receive the information the assistant passes to a tool, such as application answers, document details, or a council reply you want to send. Requested changes and sent messages are saved in Planda Portal as part of your application records. Information returned to your assistant is also subject to that provider's privacy and data settings.

Our privacy notice and terms and conditions apply as usual.

Disconnecting

• ChatGPT: Settings, then Apps, find Planda Portal and choose Disconnect.

• Claude: Settings, then Connectors, find Planda Portal and choose Remove.

Disconnecting removes the connection from your assistant. Your Planda Portal applications and account are unaffected. Disconnecting does not delete information already returned to a chat.

Developers

Planda Portal is exposed as a standard Model Context Protocol server at https://app.plandaportal.co.uk/mcp with OAuth 2.0 and dynamic client registration, so it also works with other MCP-compatible tools. In Claude Code, for example:

Questions

Email hello@plandaportal.co.uk or use the chat button in the portal.