Agentic UK Permitted Development Rights (PDR) screening and Article 4 Direction impact assessment service for small property developers, landlords, and homeowners who need to determine whether a proposed development requires full planning permission or qualifies as permitted development under the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015. Replaces the planning consultant who charges £400–£1,200 for a formal pre-application PDR opinion letter.
Why now
No fresh signal batch provided today. Justified by DLUHC's ongoing PDR expansion (Class MA commercial-to-residential, Class Q agricultural conversions) creating genuine uncertainty, and by persistent r/HousingUK and r/selfbuild threads about PDR confusion. The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 further amended PDR scope, increasing consultant demand.
Commercial value
~200,000 PDR queries are handled annually by planning consultants and local authority pre-application services in England. Consultants charge £400–£1,200 for a written PDR opinion. LPA pre-application advice charges £150–£600 with 8–12 week waits. Willingness to pay £149–£349 for a same-day written PDR assessment. Budget line: currently paid to planning consultants or LPA pre-app fees. Penalty for getting it wrong: enforcement notice, retrospective application costs.
Go-to-market
Target small developers and landlords via PropertyHub Forum, LandlordZone, and LinkedIn property investor groups. Offer £149 per PDR screening report. Partner with planning application services (e.g. Householder planning agents) for referrals. First 10 customers via PropertyHub forum post offering free first screen in exchange for feedback.
2-week MVP
Single workflow: user inputs property address (auto-fetches planning history via Planning Portal API), development type, and key dimensions via a web form. LLM cross-references GPDO 2015 schedule against inputs and produces a 2-page PDR eligibility opinion letter with confidence rating and recommended next step. Human planner reviews borderline cases in week 1. Day-1 outcome: customer receives a written PDR opinion within 4 hours and pays £149. Cut: Article 4 Direction mapping overlay, appeal drafting, LPA submission, full planning application service.
Agent score
0.62 — Commercial score reflects large addressable query volume and clear budget displacement from consultant fees, but ticket is modest (£149–£349) and repeat purchase depends on development pipeline; 0.71. Speed is good — Planning Portal API + LLM opinion letter is a 2-week solo build; PropertyHub forum is a known free channel; 0.80. Defensibility slightly above default because Planning Portal API integration and a growing library of LPA-specific Article 4 Direction data creates some compounding advantage, but still easily cloned; 0.42.
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