Privacy policy

Who we are

Planning Approvals is a trading name of DINGIR LTD, a company registered in England and Wales, company no. 16645723, 86-90 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NE ("we", "our" or "us"). We are the data controller for the personal information collected through this website. Questions about this policy go to hello@approvedplans.co.uk.

What we collect

When you run the free check, message us or instruct drawings, we may collect:

• Your WhatsApp number, so the check summary can be sent to you and so we can follow up on the project you told us about.
• Your property address, so we can look up the public planning record and constraints for that property.
• Your project details: the type of project and the sizes you enter.
• Your name and email, when you give them to us to instruct drawings or to ask a question.
• Technical information: your IP address, browser type and the pages you visit, in our server logs.
• An advertising click identifier, if you allow advertising attribution cookies and arrive from a Google ad, so we can tell which ad brought you here.

Why we collect it

• To run your free check and show you the result.
• To send the check summary to your WhatsApp number and to contact you about the project you described.
• To prepare a written fee agreement and, if you instruct us, to deliver the drawings and handle your application.
• To invoice, take payment, and meet our accounting and tax record-keeping obligations.
• To keep the site secure and to measure how it is used, in aggregate.

We do not sell your data and we do not share it with advertisers. We share it only with the service providers below.

Who we share it with

• Hetzner, which hosts our website and enquiry database.
• Cloudflare, which serves the site, logs request metadata and stores database backups.
• Telegram, which delivers enquiry details and saved check summaries to our private staff account so we can respond to your request.
• Google Analytics, only if you allow analytics cookies, as described below.
• Ordnance Survey, which provides the address lookup. We send your address query, not your name or number.
• Public planning data services and council planning portals, which we query with the property address only.
• WhatsApp (Meta), which carries the messages between you and us under its own terms.

How long we keep it

The check session on this site, which holds your address, your WhatsApp number and the result, is deleted 90 days after you run the check, and the result link stops working after 30 days. Lead records are kept for up to 3 years from your last contact with us, so we can follow up and answer questions about work we have done. You can ask us to delete your data earlier. Invoices and payment records are kept for 6 years, as the Companies Act 2006 and HMRC require.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, or object to a particular use of it. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. To exercise any of these rights, email hello@approvedplans.co.uk. We respond within 30 days.

Cookies and optional analytics

The essential ap_consent cookie remembers your choices for 180 days. You can accept or reject optional cookies, choose each category separately, and change your mind using Cookie settings.

If you allow analytics, Google Analytics 4 measures page visits and actions such as clicking a contact link or expressing interest in proceeding. Its _ga and _ga_* cookies last up to 180 days. We do not load Google Analytics before you allow it. Rejecting analytics does not prevent you using the site or the free check.

We send page categories, contact methods and the referring website, where available. We remove URL queries and private checker identifiers, and do not send your property address, phone number, email, project description or form contents to Google Analytics. Automatic form tracking and Google advertising personalisation are disabled. Google also processes technical information, including your IP address when it receives a request. See Google's privacy policy, including information about international processing.

If you separately allow advertising attribution, mf_gclid can remember a Google ad click identifier for up to 90 days. This helps attribute an enquiry and does not enable personalised advertising. Withdrawal removes that cookie. Withdrawing analytics consent stops subsequent collection and removes our Analytics cookies; it does not automatically erase previously collected data.

Google Analytics retains detailed event data for 2 months and user data for up to 14 months, without extending that retention on new activity. Aggregated reports may remain available for longer. We use your consent for optional analytics and advertising attribution. Operational enquiry records are separate and are retained as described above.

Changes to this policy

We update this page if our practices change. The date at the top shows when it was last reviewed.