Planning Portal Reviews 

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.

If I could allocate zero stars I would do so. Absolutely unfit for purpose. The first box asks you to 'create your location plan'. If the site is anything other than a simple rectangle you need to use freehand plotting...THIS DOES NOT WORK. After the first few clicks the polygon snaps back to the start and a message informing you that 'your polygon appears to have intersecting lines' appears and you have to start all over again. This sequence repeats ad infinitum! Additionally you have no ability to move the map base around the screen once plotting has started. It is quite clear that the idiots producing this software have never actually used it in a real life situation. Another failing is that there is an option to create labels to add to your location plan. Having created the label/s and saved the plan, the plan, when downloaded does not contain the labels! I have previously reported these issues directly, on the phone, to a Planning Portal helpline but it was quite clear that there was absolutely zero intention to either escalate the problems or to even consider doing anything about them...the customer is treated with total contempt!

Terrible for another friend of some politician to make money on the nation. It started at £25 and now is £70 for someone who wants to add a rear room or dormer in the loft. Add to this crazy planning process and you have recipe for disaster.

As a business that local councils require members of the public to use, I do not think that the Planning Portal should accept advertisers without vetting them. In the case of Studio Charrette they would see on Google and Trustpilot that they regularly fail to provide the services that they accept payment for and fail to make promised refunds.

This is a common problem in the UK with services that you have to pay a fee for to a public body. These clever Harries work by sticking themselves into the process of doing a planning application. How it works is you upload your pdf drawings to them, and their platform charges you a £60+ fee for sending it to the planning office as you could have done yourself in an email, quicker and better and with no terms and conditions (such as signing away your rights if they e.g. spread viruses to your computer through incompetence). You get this now in every walk of life whether it is a deed poll, or a land registry check. And various parts of our central and local government are well and truly in on this. Kick them to the kerb and insist that your Council takes a direct application with ONLY the statutory fee they're allowed to in law. The money you'll save isn't even the point it's about not having absolute carpetbaggers taking over everything.

The Planning Portal used to be very useful as it cut out some of the work required when submitting a planning application at a reasonable fee. That fee has increased overtime to £64.00, which in my view is excessive. I now do that extra work myself and charge my clients an extra £50.00. Also getting refunds is difficult as you have to prove the payments even when you have receipts. They will doubtless be phased out if the prices continue to rise.

The Planning Portal was throwing up technical errors whilst I was trying to submit a Listed Building Consent (LBC). The help line insisted the problem was at my end and made me jump through hoops to no avail. Frustrated, I gave up, but a few days later I visited the portal where the technical errors had vanished. I am not pleased they threw the problem back at me.

Even worse the agent told me that for a LBC I had to go to their Building Control portal, which turned out to be WRONG so I needlessly submitted an application which I then had to withdraw once the error was discovered.

However they were polite.