Plan✕ is owned and operated by Open Systems Lab (a non-profit company registered in England & Wales, 9152368) on behalf of its customers, who are local planning authorities, who use the platform to create, publish and operate digital planning services for members of the public.
You can use Plan✕ to access digital planning services, for example to submit a planning application to a local planning authority. These services are checked by the relevant local planning authority.
Some Plan✕ components may connect you to other external third party services (such as GOV.UK Pay). We are not responsible for these external services. You should read all terms & conditions, privacy policies and end user licences that relate to these services before using them.
By using Plan✕ you agree to these terms and to the End User Licence Agreement. If you do not agree with both of these agreements, you should stop using Plan✕ immediately.
You agree to use Plan✕ only for lawful purposes.
We update the Plan✕ platform regularly. Similarly, planning authorities may change or remove content at any time without notice. We are not responsible for any loss of data you have already entered into Plan✕.
Your data is stored on Plan✕ only for as long as required for the purposes of exploring, preparing and submitting planning applications and other transactions. You are encouraged to keep your own back-up copy of any information you submit via Plan✕.
When you prepare or submit an application using this service, your data is stored securely.
We use a range of organisations to either store personal information, help deliver our services to you and hear your views on a range of issues.
Where we have these arrangements, there is always an agreement in in place to make sure that the organisation complies with data protection law.
Once you submit an application using this service, your application including any personal data you provide, will be securely stored in the Back office planning system service. This storage is in addition to storage of your data on the council's servers.
You can expect to receive an automated email from the Back office planning system service once you have submitted your application. You may receive further emails from that service if the council decides to use it to process your application.
You may wish to link to services on Plan✕. You must contact us for permission if you want to:
Services on Plan✕ may contain links to other websites and services that are managed by other organisations.
We do not control these websites and services, and are not responsible for any loss or damage that may come from your use of other websites. You should read all terms and conditions, privacy policies and end user licences before you use them.
Intellectual property & copyright
Plan✕ software is owned by Open Systems Lab under copyright. Some parts of this software may be published elsewhere under a different licence, but you should not attempt to use the Plan✕ service to extract or reverse engineer its software or to extract its content.
The content of services running on Plan✕ are owned by the publishers. In most cases these are published under Open Government Licence (OGL).
Ordnance Survey Maps and address data are the property of Ordnance Survey and are used under the terms of the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA). You may not copy, distribute or modify these maps or data except where such use is permitted by Ordnance Survey under another licence.
Local council logos are exempt from the OGL, and should not be used without permission.
Plan✕ is a protected trademark. You should not use it to represent yourself, your business or organisation, nor should you use it in such a way as to imply that you are affiliated with or endorsed by us.
Neither we, nor local planning authorities publishing planning information via Plan✕ give any guarantees, conditions or warranties, express or implied that the data, information or guidance provided on Plan✕ will be:
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, information published via Plan✕ does not constitute legal advice or an official planning decision. You should always contact your local planning authority and/or get professional advice.
We are not liable for any loss or damage that may result from using Plan✕ or services running on Plan✕. This includes:
We may still be liable for:
Any personal or sensitive data that you share when using services on Plan✕ is controlled by the authority that you are submitting that information to you.
For more information about how each local authority collects, stores and uses that data, you should refer to the privacy notice on the service. This can be found using the link at the bottom of the page.
By using a particular service on Plan✕ you agree to allow Plan✕ to process your personal and sensitive data on behalf of local planning authority, and to allow the relevant planning authority to use your data in accordance with their privacy policy.
We make every effort to check and test Plan✕ for viruses at every stage of production. You must make sure that the way you use Plan✕ does not expose you to the risk of viruses, malicious computer code or other forms of interference which can damage your computer system.
We are not responsible for any loss, disruption or damage to your data or computer system that might happen when you use Plan✕.
When using Plan✕, you must not introduce viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or any other material that’s malicious or harmful to the service, its operators or users.
You must not try to gain unauthorised access to Plan✕ or any server, computer or database connected to it. You must not attack Plan✕ in any way. This includes denial-of-service attacks.
We will report any attacks or attempts to gain unauthorised access to Plan✕ to the relevant law enforcement authorities and share information about you with them.
These terms and conditions are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.
Any dispute you have which relates to these terms and conditions, or your use of GOV.UK (whether it be contractual or non-contractual), will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
We are not liable if we fail to comply with these terms and conditions because of circumstances beyond our reasonable control.
If any of these terms and conditions are held to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal for any reason, the remaining terms and conditions will still apply.
Please check these terms and conditions regularly. We can update them at any time without notice. By continuing to use Plan✕ you agree to the amended Terms of Use and End User Licence Agreement.
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Version 1.1 / Last updated June 2025
