Last reviewed: May 2025
1. Introduction These terms and conditions apply to registered Architect and Consultant users of UK Planning Gateway (“the Platform”), operated by Submit A Plan Ltd. By registering and using the Platform, you agree to be legally bound by these terms in full. These terms govern your access and use of our application preparation and submission system.
2. Eligibility and Authorisation You confirm that you are a registered architect, planning consultant, or other suitably qualified design professional legally authorised to submit planning applications on behalf of your clients.
3. Scope of Service The Platform provides a digital interface for preparing and submitting planning applications. It incorporates patent-pending technology used under licence. The Platform does not provide legal or planning advice unless explicitly stated.
4. Submission Responsibility You accept full responsibility for the completeness and accuracy of submitted information and documents.
5. Use of Unique Email Addresses A unique email is created for each submission. You consent to our monitoring and handling of LPA correspondence sent to that address.
6. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) UK Planning Gateway integrates AI and machine-assisted systems to enhance performance, accuracy, and usability. This includes automated checks for completeness, OCR and NLP-based document classification, predictive detection of missing files, file naming, issue flagging, routing, and more. AI systems are subject to human oversight and do not make planning decisions. We comply with UK GDPR and ICO AI guidance, maintaining fairness, accountability, and explainability. Users may request further details or opt out of non-essential AI systems.
7. Limitation of Liability Submit A Plan Ltd is not liable for rejections, delays, or losses due to user error or external systems.
8. Payments and Refunds Payments are processed via Stripe. Fees are non-refundable after submission.
9. Data Security and Confidentiality Client consent must be obtained before sharing data. Data is processed securely under UK GDPR.
10. Account Suspension We may suspend accounts for misuse or fraud.
11. Dispute Resolution Disputes are subject to arbitration or the jurisdiction of English courts.
12. Governing Law Governed by the laws of England and Wales.
Last reviewed: May 2025
1. Introduction These terms apply to individuals using UK Planning Gateway to submit planning applications.
2. Eligibility You confirm ownership or legal authority for the property.
3. Nature of Platform UK Planning Gateway submits applications to LPAs and uses patent-pending licensed technology.
4. Your Responsibilities You are responsible for verifying the accuracy of all entries and documents.
5. Optional Services Consultant Reviews are non-binding and non-refundable.
6. Use of Unique Email Addresses You consent to our access and management of communication with LPAs via generated email addresses.
7. Use of AI See Architect Terms section 6. The same applies here.
8. Payments and Refunds Fees are non-refundable after submission.
9. Data Protection Personal data is processed only for application-related purposes.
10. Technical Support We do not control LPA timelines or technical issues.
11. Governing Law Governed by the laws of England and Wales.
Last updated: July 2025
UK Planning Gateway is committed to protecting your privacy. This privacy policy explains how UK Planning Gateway collects, uses, and processes your personal data when you visit our website, use our services, or communicate with us.
Please read this policy carefully. If you have any questions, contact us using the details below.
Submit A Plan (Company No. 16427981) is the data controller responsible for your personal data. This means Submit A Plan decides how and why your personal data is processed. We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring your personal information is handled securely and transparently.
UK Planning Gateway is operated by Submit A Plan Ltd (Company No. 16427981), registered with the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office).
Our Data Protection Officer is Mrs Parvinder Kaur.
We ensure compliance with data protection laws.
This privacy policy applies to:
Legal entity name: Submit A Plan Limited
Trading Name: UK Planning Gateway
Company No. 16427981
Email: hello@planninggateway.co.uk
Postal address: 4 Edward St, Birmingham, B1 2RX
Phone: 0333 200 5444
Personal data means any information that identifies you directly or indirectly.
We may collect the following categories of personal data:
We may also collect aggregated (non-identifiable) data for analysis and service improvement.
Where required by law or contract, if you do not provide necessary personal data, we may be unable to deliver services or process your planning applications.
We only collect personal data for specified purposes and use it accordingly unless otherwise permitted or required by law.
We use your data to:
| Purpose | Data Types | Legal Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Register you as a customer | Identity, Contact | Performance of a contract |
| Manage your orders/payments | Identity, Contact, Transaction, Profile, Planning Data | Performance of a contract; legitimate interests (e.g. debt recovery) |
| Manage our relationship | Identity, Contact, Profile, Marketing | Contract; legal obligation; legitimate interests |
| Market research and surveys | Identity, Contact, Profile, Technical, Marketing | Contract; legitimate interests |
| Deliver services and platform features | Identity, Contact, Transaction, Planning Data | Legal obligation; legitimate interests |
| Share anonymized data for research | Aggregated data | Legitimate interests |
| Administer and protect business and website | Identity, Contact, Technical | Legitimate interests; legal obligation |
| Improve website, marketing, and user experience | Technical, Profile, Marketing | Legitimate interests |
| Send marketing communications | Identity, Contact, Profile, Planning, Marketing | Consent (for consumers) or legitimate interests (for commercial users) |
| Share data with trusted third parties for marketing and service improvements | Various | Legitimate interests |
This data is used to
Our platform infrastructure includes patent-pending technology used under licence to enhance system functionality and security.
We may share your personal data with the parties listed below for the purposes described in the “How we use your personal data” section.
Official Bodies and Regulatory Authorities
We may share your personal data with:
Platform Partners and Local Authorities
We may share relevant data with local planning authorities and third parties involved in the planning process to help fulfil your application requirements. This may include transferring certain information you enter through UK Planning Gateway to local authority systems to enable submissions and responses.
Information included in your application form may be published on the local authority’s website. While local authorities are expected to withhold personal information from public view, we recommend contacting them directly if you have any concerns about sensitive data being made public.
Third-Party Service Providers
We may work with trusted third-party service providers who help us operate and improve UK Planning Gateway. These include:
Research and Analysis
We use analytics and tracking technologies to understand how users interact with UK Planning Gateway and to improve the functionality and performance of our platform.
These technologies may collect information such as:
We currently use services like Google Analytics to help us monitor site usage and make improvements. These services may use cookies or similar technologies. You can manage your preferences or disable non-essential cookies via our cookie settings panel.
Please note that analytics data is anonymised or pseudonymised and is not used to identify you directly unless otherwise stated.
We may share this anonymised or aggregated data with selected third-party partners to gain insights into usage trends, support service improvement, and inform business decisions. Where personal data is involved, we ensure appropriate safeguards and rely on lawful bases, such as legitimate interest, for such processing.
Commercial Data Sharing
Where applicable, we may share your personal data with trusted commercial partners to enhance the services available through our platform or provide you with relevant offers, subject to your preferences and applicable laws.
Business Transfers and Structural Changes
If UK Planning Gateway undergoes a sale, merger, restructuring, or asset transfer, your personal data may be shared with prospective buyers or new owners, subject to the protections set out in this privacy notice.
All third parties are required to handle your data securely and lawfully. We do not permit third-party processors to use your data for their own purposes, and they are only allowed to process it in accordance with our instructions.
UK Planning Gateway currently processes and stores personal data within the United Kingdom. We do not transfer your data outside the UK.
If this ever changes in the future or it becomes necessary to transfer personal data to a country outside the UK which has not received a data adequacy decision from the UK Government (for example, to integrate a tool or partner based overseas) we will update this privacy notice accordingly and ensure that any transfer complies with applicable UK data protection laws, including the use of appropriate legal safeguards.
This may include:
We apply industry-standard security measures to protect your personal data from accidental loss, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. Our systems are protected by firewalls, antivirus software, threat detection, and data encryption tools. Access to your personal data is restricted to employees, contractors, and service providers who need it for business purposes and are under confidentiality obligations.
Where we work with third-party suppliers, we ensure they meet our standards of data protection and security. Our contracts require them to process your data only as instructed and to maintain appropriate technical and organisational safeguards.
If we must transfer your data outside the UK, we do so only where the recipient can guarantee a level of data protection consistent with UK requirements, using contractual safeguards where necessary.
We have internal procedures to detect and manage any suspected data breaches and will notify you and the appropriate authorities when legally required.
We will retain your personal data only as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including legal, tax, accounting, or regulatory obligations.
In determining retention periods, we consider:
In some cases, we may anonymise your data for statistical or analytical use, in which case it is no longer personal data and may be retained indefinitely.
While UK Planning Gateway does not currently display third-party advertisements, we may explore advertising or affiliate partnerships in the future to support the platform.
If we implement such features, we will ensure:
This section will be updated accordingly before any such features go live.
Under data protection laws, you have the following rights:
We do not usually charge a fee for access requests, but we may charge or decline requests that are manifestly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive.
To protect your privacy, we may require you to verify your identity before fulfilling your request. We aim to respond to all legitimate requests within one month, though this may take longer for complex cases.
You may request access, correction, or deletion of your data at any time.
To raise a concern or make a data request, write to: Mrs Parvinder Kaur, Data Protection Officer, UK Planning Gateway, 4 Edward Street, Birmingham B1 2RX.
UK Planning Gateway does not use automated decision-making or profiling in ways that have legal or significant effects on you.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
As described above, we use AI solely to support system functionality. No automated decisions are made about you using AI. All use of AI is lawful, supervised, and documented, with no legal or significant effects on you.
We encourage users to take precautions when using our platform, including:
While we take steps to protect data transmission, please be aware that no system is completely secure and any transmission is at your own risk.
Visit www.getsafeonline.org for further advice on protecting your personal information.
If you are unhappy with how we use your data or respond to your request, please contact us at the contact details listed in this Privacy Notice. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK’s data protection authority:
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Website: www.ico.org.uk
This Privacy Notice was last updated in July 2025.
We may amend this notice periodically. Any changes will be posted on our website and, where appropriate, notified to you by email or platform message.
When government changes planning application fees, our priority is to ensure the updated values are applied to try and minimise submissions where fees are invalid.
This means that there may be instances where the updated fee values are carried into applications that were originally submitted before the change, but opened for amendment after the updated values are in place.
Because amendments sometimes require an additional fee, the system will apply the updated fee values regardless of when the original application was submitted.
To ensure customers are not overcharged in this scenario, they will be able to select a specific ‘procedural’ exemption that will allow the amendment to be submitted without an additional payment.
The local authority will then inform the customer if any additional fee is due when the amendment is received and reviewed.
For applications originally submitted before a change in fees has taken place, while this issue persists, we would recommend not using the amendment functions on the UK Planning Gateway to correct fee issues.
This interim workaround enables us to update the fees in line with legislative timetables, but we are aware that it is not an ideal solution.
In every case where a planning fee over £100 is due, the UK Planning Gateway processes the fee before passing both the payment and the application together to the relevant local authority.
This means:
There is a service charge for submitting some planning applications online, the service charge is £75. Applications with a planning fee below the £100 threshold do not incur the service charge.
Find out more about the service.
Find out about planning application fees
You can find information below about how to make a payment for a planning application, or more detailed information can be found in our walk-through guide.
Once you have completed your application in the usual way, you will be taken to the payment screen.
The service includes a full range of payment options but you will only be presented with those that are available based on the amount which is due. You can select to pay for the application yourself or nominate another person to pay.
We accept Maestro UK, Visa and Mastercard, these cards can also be used to pay via Google Pay and Apple Pay digital wallets, all up to the limit of £1,000; we do not accept American Express or any other card type not listed here.
To pay for your application online, you will need to provide:
When successful payment has been made, you will be sent a receipt to the email address associated with the application.
To make a phone payment up to £1,000 you will need to contact our payment team on 0333 200 5444. Please have your payment reference number ready to quote when you call this number.
In order to process the payment, you will need to supply the following details to the operator:
Once the operator has successfully taken payment, you will receive an email receipt confirming the transaction.
Payment by phone can be made from Monday – Friday (excluding bank holidays) from 9am – 5pm. Calls charged at standard UK-wide rate from a UK landline. Mobile charges may vary.
After selecting the option to pay by bank transfer, you will be shown a screen with all the details of how to make a payment using your own bank transfer facility. You will be presented with our account information unique to you, please ensure you only use the account information you see on the bank transfer payment screen to transfer payment into.
Please make sure you use your payment reference number as the reference for the transaction when making your transfer, otherwise we may not be able to match your payment to your application and this will slow down the release of your application.
Please make cheques payable to ‘UK Planning Gateway’ and post your completed and signed cheque to the following address:
Submit A Plan Limited
4 Edward Street,
Birmingham,
England,
B1 2RX
Please ensure that you or your client writes the payment reference number clearly on the back of the cheque, in the top right hand corner. If you do not write the payment reference number on the cheque, we will not be able to match the payment to the application.
If you wish, you can also include a remittance slip with the cheque. To do this, click the blue ‘Print remittance slip’ button and include this with the completed and signed cheque when sending.
When we receive your cheque, you will be sent an email confirmation.
You can use our payment notification service for your client to make a payment by selecting ‘Nominate another person to pay’. After providing your client’s email address, a notification by email will be sent to your client to request that they make payment.
Nominated payments can be made online or by phone (up to £1,000) or by bank transfer or cheque.
Please be aware that until payment has cleared, your application remains under the ‘Draft’ status tab. The application will move to the ‘Submitted’ status tab once payment has cleared and the application has been submitted to the local authority.
In order to request a refund or partial refund for an application, you will first need to contact the relevant local planning authority (LPA). Once you have contacted them, they will confirm to us that you require a refund and we will process the refund back to you via the original payment method.
The refund will be processed within 14 days of the refund being confirmed by the LPA.
We will notify you and the LPA by email once the refund has been actioned.
We will make a refund to your original payment card or via bank transfer; and in accordance with relevant legislation and regulations such as The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017.
Our service charge will only be refunded if there is an error made on our part.
Find the contact details for your local planning authority
There will be a cut-off at the end of business hours on the last working day prior to the fee changes taking effect for application submissions using the previous fee values.
The payment process (if required) for an application must be completed (payment received and cleared by UK Planning Gateway) before submission can take place, so will need to have happened prior to this cut off.
This is in line with the legislation for submitting applications electronically which states that applications received after the close of business hours are taken to have been received the next working day (i.e. when the new fees have taken effect).
After this point, the system will be unavailable so we can carry out work to implement the changes, and it will no longer be possible to update an application, progress a payment, or make a submission.
Fee change dates and submission deadlines
The point of submission can be checked on the system and in the ‘Submitted date’ field in the notification emails sent to the user and local authority.
Once the changes are made, and the system is made available, all application fee calculations will use the updated values set by government.
Any non-submitted applications will have their payment processes cancelled, and fee calculations reset so that users must recalculate using the updated fees and then pay for and submit the application.
You can pay by various methods when submitting your online application, depending on the total amount, by completing the following steps:
Please note: Payment online or by phone is available for applications up to the amount of £1,000. Should your application amount exceed £1,000, alternative payment methods will be displayed.
If paying by bank transfer ensure you use the unique account details and reference number presented to you on the screen, do not use saved bank information.
This advice is for paying for an application yourself, to find out about how to nominate another person to pay, read our FAQ.
If you are experiencing difficulty using the UK Planning Gateway website to make a payment for a planning application, you can contact the Support team by emailing hello@planninggateway.co.uk or call 0333 200 5444.
Only if you have a prior agreement with us. Organisations wishing to make batch payments will need to have accounts configured, find out more about batch payments for applications.
The ‘Nominate’ payment option allows you to request that someone else makes payment for an application. This option uses a nominee’s email address to request payment so you will need their email address and must advise them of the process before you begin.
After completing the application and choose pay and submit, you will be presented with a choice of ways to make payment. To nominate another person to pay you should choose ‘Nominate another person to pay’ from the list of payment options.
After choosing ‘Nominate another person to pay’, you can then enter the email address of the person you wish to nominate to pay the application fee.
Once you have completed these fields, make sure that you read and understand the terms and conditions before accepting them by clicking on the tick box provided.
You will then need to click on the ‘Confirm’ button to send the payment request to the nominated email address.
This will trigger an email to that person with a link to direct them to make the payment by selecting their preferred method. They will receive reminders every 14 days until they make the payment, or the request is cancelled. Both parties will receive confirmation once payment is successful. The application will be submitted to the local authority considerably faster when opting to pay online, by phone or by bank transfer, as applicable.
The application will remain in draft until the payment has been received and cleared. Once payment has cleared the application will move to the ‘submitted’ status and be sent to the local authority.
Please ensure that your client uses the payment reference number, beginning ‘PP’, as a reference when making any payment, otherwise we won’t be able to match the payment to the application.
Bank transfers: Provide the payment reference number as the reference when making a transfer. Ensure the nominee only uses the unique bank account information presented to them on screen to pay for the application.
Paying by cheque: The reference number must be written on the top right on the back of the cheque. These instructions are shown on the relevant screen when selecting to pay by cheque.
All payments for online applications are processed by the UK Planning Gateway. The time it takes for the payment and your application to reach the local authority will depend on the payment method you use and the type of application you submit.
We recommend paying for your application online or by bank transfer to speed up the process.
Once you have completed your application and are ready to make a payment, the payment screen will provide the information you need relating to payment types and timescales.
The table above provides information about the time taken for a payment to be processed, once the payment has been matched to your application.
Please note: you should include the UK Planning Gateway reference number, starting ‘UKPG’, when making a payment.
You can find further details about making a payment and the timescales in our walk-through guide
Because nominations and payments take time to complete, there will be cases where the application fee changes between the point it is originally calculated, and the point when the application is received by the local authority, who will then check the fee is correct.
This can mean that if payment for an application is not completed (i.e. received and cleared by UK Planning Gateway) before the fee changes, then a different fee may need to be paid, even if the payment process has already started (e.g. a nomination has been made, or a bank transfer initiated).
If you’ve been nominated to make a payment, you may wish to discuss this with the person who is making the application so they can complete their actions and nominate you to pay in plenty of time.
Alternatively, ensure that you are aware of what the new fee will be, and account for this in your project costs so there are no surprises when the payment request arrives.
When fees are changing, our ‘forthcoming’ schedules will let you know what the new fees will be:
If the application fee is below £1,000, a card payment is the quickest way to complete payment.
If you cannot pay by card, consider using the ‘faster payment’ method of bank transfer to best ensure the payment reaches us quickly and can be cleared before the submission deadline.
We will do our best to clear all payments received prior to the fees changing, but we cannot guarantee this, as we are not in control of when each payment will arrive in our account.
View more information on payment processing times.
The payment will be cancelled, so please do not attempt to pay using an old email link.
The person who made the application will need to open it, recalculate the fee, and restart the payment and submission process.
If they nominate you to pay again, you will receive a new nomination email for the updated amount. This can be actioned as normal.
If you have any queries on the progress of your payment or the process to ensure the correct amount is paid after the fees have changed
First, please check your emails (including spam/junk folders) for any notifications from us on the status of your payment or any required actions.
Please also check with the person who made the application, as they will also be receiving similar emails from us.
We send email notifications at every key point in the process, so if you haven’t had one to say the payment has been received, or the application submitted, then the likelihood is that it’s not been.
We also send more specific emails regarding any actions resulting from a fee change, so you or the person who made the application may have received one of these.
If you still need help, please visit our help pages and/or contact our support team.
Both parties will have been informed by email that the user who originally made the application will need to take the following steps:
If the user or nominated party has already made a payment for the application (e.g. initiated a bank transfer or posted a cheque) then, once the third step above is completed, please contact our support team at hello@planninggateway.co.uk to discuss the best way to ensure the correct new amount is paid.
Designed to benefit both agents and their finance departments, the batch payment facility allows organisations to pay for multiple planning applications in a single transaction.
Every organisation that wishes to make batch payments must have all UK Planning Gateway accounts configured by our team in order to enable the function.
As part of the setup, the organisation will be assigned dedicated bank account details to make batch payments to.
Please note: Batch payments can only be made by prior agreement. Please do not pay for multiple applications in a single payment unless you have a prior agreement with us and account configuration by our team, without this there will be a significant delay in applications being processed.
To request batch payments to be configured for your organisation, email hello@planninggateway.co.uk
Read more about batch payments
There are no transaction limits specific to the nominate option, but there is a transaction limit for some payment methods.
There is a limit of £1,000 when paying by debit or credit card, online or by phone. This limit applies to both the nominate option and direct payments. If the fee for your application is over this limit you will be presented with the option to pay by bank transfer or cheque.
Please ensure that you (or your client, if you are an agent) use the application reference number, beginning ‘UKPG’, as a reference when making any payment, otherwise we won’t be able to match the payment to the application.
Please note: the application will be released to the local authority considerably faster when opting to pay by bank transfer.
When an application is complete (all questions answered, necessary files uploaded, and fee calculated) then it is ready to proceed to payment and/or submission.
Once the payment process is started, the application will be placed in a ‘Payment pending’ status, which will ‘lock’ the application to stop any further changes being made to it.
You can cancel the payment process to ‘unlock’ the application and return it to ‘Draft’ status if further changes are required.
Depending on who is making the payment and the method they choose, applications may stay in this state for minutes (e.g. if a direct online card payment is made) or days/weeks (e.g. if someone else is nominated to pay and takes a while to do so; and/or if we need to wait to receive and process a bank transfer or cheque).
Once payment is confirmed, the system will automatically submit the application and move it from ‘Payment pending’ to the ‘Submitted’ status. You will be notified of this via email.
Although your application is locked, there may be system wide changes that affect it.
Because your application is locked whilst ‘pending payment’, and then automatically submitted, there may not be a chance for you to take account of any such changes prior to submission.
We always look to minimise the impact of such changes, and provide sufficient communications and warnings, but we also know that some users may remain unaware of them.
The following are examples of such changes:
While these changes are relatively uncommon, they do occur periodically.
Where we can, we will attempt to minimise the impact by identifying any affected applications and taking appropriate action.
For example, we may cancel the payment process if an updated fee needs to be calculated, or we may reassign an application to the correct local authority before it is submitted.
However, this is not always possible and affected applications may be submitted to the local authority. They, in turn, may notice that further action is required to make the application valid.
If the application is still ‘Payment pending’, then the payment process can be cancelled, which will unlock the application and allow you to make the required changes to it.
If the application has already been ‘Submitted’, but not ‘Received’, it can be retracted, which will also unlock the application and allow changes to be made.
In both cases, the application will then still need to be submitted to the local authority.
If the application has been ‘Received’ by the local authority, then there are a couple of options available.
Generally, making an amendment using our built-in functions will allow you to resolve any such issues (e.g. adding required information, or recalculating a fee). The amended application can then be resubmitted to the local authority who can confirm its validity.
Equally, a local authority may request that you resolve the matter directly with them.
If you are aware a change has occurred that may affect an application that has already been received, we would always advise that you discuss the matter with the local authority to determine the best course of action.
Our support team can also be contacted to help you with any such issues but may need to defer to the local authority and its preferred course of action.
We will maintain a blog post with all relevant details leading up to the change
We will also provide a ‘forthcoming’ fee schedule that gives a quick reference guide to the changes and links to source information:
Warning notices informing users of the change will be displayed on the application service, and email notifications from the payment service will also include advice about the forthcoming changes.
Local authorities and higher volume users will also be sent email communications.
It is generally expected that government will provide the following information:
If you are experiencing difficulty using the UK Planning Gateway website to make a payment for a planning application, you can contact our Support Team by emailing hello@planninggateway.co.uk or call 0333 200 5444.
