Planning Leads for Groundworkers: Find New Build and Basement Jobs Before Tender
Groundworks come first on every job — foundations, drainage, basements, driveways. All of it starts with a planning application, published on a council website, often months before a main contractor even gets appointed, let alone starts sourcing a groundworker.
Most groundworkers never see these applications early, because checking multiple council portals every week for the right kind of job isn’t realistic on top of running sites. By the time the phone rings, the tender’s often already gone out to two or three firms.
Planr checks the portals for you, every week, automatically.
How Planr finds planning leads for groundworkers
Planr scrapes planning portals across Herts, Essex, and London (expanding) weekly, pulling in every new application and extracting the applicant’s name and address from the documents — including redacted PDFs that would take real effort to search by hand.
An AI model scores each application for relevance to groundworks, surfacing new builds, basement conversions and large extensions near the top of your list.
What gets scored highly for groundworkers
- New build houses — foundations, drainage, and full groundworks from a clean site
- Basement and cellar conversions — significant excavation and structural groundwork
- Large rear extensions — new foundations, often complex given proximity to existing structures
- Driveway and hardstanding applications — smaller jobs, but frequent
- Drainage-related applications — flood risk assessments, SUDS schemes, often tied to larger developments
What you get
A scored weekly list of groundworks-relevant applications, and a ready-to-send letter for each one, already written and referencing the specific project. Planr reads your website before writing, so the letter reflects what you actually do — foundations, drainage, groundworks packages — matched to the application.
Download it, print it, post it.
How much time this saves
Checking multiple council portals and reading application documents to work out scope and scale takes roughly 2 hours a week done properly. Most groundworkers are running sites and don’t have that spare time, which is exactly why early leads get missed.
With Planr, that’s about 10 minutes a week: check your scored list, download what’s worth sending. Roughly 7 hours back a month.
Pricing and free trial
- Starter — £29/month. 1 council.
- Growth — £59/month. 3 councils.
- Pro — £79/month. 15 councils.
7-day free trial, no card required, 3 letters included to try against real local applications.
FAQ
Is groundworks usually tendered, and does this help me get in early enough? Yes, groundworks is often tendered by the main contractor — but planning approval typically comes well before a main contractor is appointed, so early contact with the homeowner or developer can put you in the conversation before tender documents even go out.
Does this cover basement conversions specifically? Yes — basement and cellar conversion applications are scored highly given the scale of groundworks typically involved.
Can I use this for small residential jobs and larger developments? Both. New build sites (single plot or multi-unit) and large extensions with significant groundworks are all covered by the scoring.
Will I see drainage and flood risk-related applications? Yes — applications with drainage schemes or SUDS requirements are scored as relevant, since they often indicate larger groundworks packages.
How many councils can I cover on one plan? Starter covers 1 council, Growth covers 3, and Pro covers 15 — pick based on how wide your working area is.
Get your name in before the tender pack goes out. Start your 7-day free trial — no card required.