If you have visited Planning Geek recently, you may have noticed that things look rather different.
And, rather appropriately, Planning Geek is 9 years old today. The domain was registered on 1st September 2017, so happy birthday to us. 🎂
This Planning Geek update is partly about numbers. August became a slightly ridiculous month behind the scenes.
WordPress records 229 new pages created during August, compared with 65 in July.
And that is before counting the amount of existing material that has been reviewed, corrected, reorganised and linked together.
Then there is Planning News. Since 17th August, 46 planning news stories have been published, which is just over three a day.
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229 pages were created in August
A lot of the work has been about filling gaps and making the site easier to use.
Planning Geek has grown over many years. Some subjects had become huge collections of individual pages without always having the structure around them that they deserved.
That is changing. Major work has gone into Planning Applications, Planning Appeals, Planning Enforcement, Planning Policy, Housing and Community Infrastructure Levy.
There has also been substantial work on Agriculture and Equestrian, Conservation, Use Classes and permitted development.
Many subjects which previously had one or two pages now have proper reference sections, clearer indexes and links to related topics.
There is still plenty to do. Planning law has an irritating habit of refusing to stay still.
The Planning Geek update is about finding things too
The changes are not only about adding content.
The main navigation has been rebuilt. Larger sections now have clearer indexes, breadcrumbs have been improved and there are better routes between related pages.
Search has also been improved, including a voice-search option if you would rather ask the site than type into it.
Planning Geek has become rather large over the years. At times it was beginning to resemble my filing cabinet.
It may still be a very large filing cabinet, but at least it now has labels. 😂
Planning News is now properly under way
On 17th August I also started publishing Planning News much more regularly.
The aim is not to reproduce every planning headline. There are plenty of places already doing that.
I am trying to concentrate on stories with a practical point behind them: legislation and policy changes, useful court judgments, planning appeals, Article 4 Directions, Local Plans, permitted development, CIL and other decisions which might actually affect somebody dealing with the planning system.
There have now been 46 stories from 17th to 31st August. The Planning News page also includes the email signup for anyone who wants the new stories delivered as a digest.
Planning Geek is also a planning consultancy
Something else I have historically been remarkably bad at mentioning is that Planning Geek is not only a free planning reference website.
We are also a planning consultancy.
We work with homeowners, developers, businesses and professionals on planning applications, permitted development, changes of use, appeals, enforcement, certificates of lawfulness and planning strategy.
If you already know that you would like us to undertake some work, you can request a fee proposal.
If you are less certain about the best route, you can also book a planning consultation and talk the options through with me first.
More Planning Geek videos are coming
I have somehow managed to acquire almost 700 subscribers on YouTube despite having recorded exactly four videos. 😂
That rather suggests I ought to record some more.
The plan is to work through many of the subjects people already use Planning Geek for: permitted development, Use Classes, applications, appeals, enforcement, CIL and the questions which repeatedly crop up.
You can subscribe to Planning Geek on YouTube if you would like to see those as they appear.
What happens next?
The plan is actually quite simple:
- keep improving Planning Geek
- publish useful planning news regularly
- record more videos
- send a proper Planning Geek email each month rather than approximately once every geological era
- turn some of what I have learnt over the years into a proper planning course
For now, thank you for continuing to use the site.
And if you can find a planning subject Planning Geek does not cover, please let me know. I am genuinely interested to see what people come up with.
Planning Geek update News Post Created: 1st September 2026
