Help
Help
How Tradecue works, where the data comes from, and what to do when something looks wrong.
Guides
12 in full- The Party Wall Act, and the two months nobody budgets for
- Protected trees, and the fine for getting it wrong
- Heat pumps, solar and charge points: what changed in 2025
- The paperwork that stops a job starting
- Conservation areas, and why the usual rules stop applying
- How big an extension can be before it needs permission
- Building Regulations are not planning permission
- The work you will never see in a planning search
- When an approval actually becomes work
- Approaching a homeowner about their application
- Certificates of lawfulness, and the rule that changed in 2024
- Reading a planning application without a planning degree
Try
30 answers, in 6 sections.
Section 01
Using it
How do I find work near me?
Search a postcode or town, set the distance to the patch you cover, and filter by trade or keyword — extension, loft, whatever you do. Every result is on a map, so a radius means something on the ground rather than a guess. Save the search and we email you when something new matches, so you are not checking by hand.
Is the submission stage too early to be useful?
For some trades, yes — and that is why it is not the only thing we watch. A bricklayer wants to hear at submission, months before anybody is appointed. A kitchen fitter or a plasterer wants the job after permission is granted and conditions are cleared, which is a year later on the same application. Tradecue alerts on five points in a job’s life, and you pick the ones that match when you would actually be on site.
What can I actually see on an application?
The address, what is proposed, the reference, the status and the dates, the map position and the planning constraints on that land — conservation area, listed building, protected trees, flood zone. Every application links straight to the council’s own record, which is the authoritative version.
What are the project values?
Estimates, not quotes. They come from published trade rates applied to the floor area stated in the application, and every one shows the basis it was worked out from. Where the application states no area we fall back to averages for that job type, and say so on the estimate itself.
Can I search without an account?
You need an account. The free plan covers planning, sold prices and domestic EPCs within two miles of one postcode or town. Wider searches, alerts, tracking and letters are the paid plan.
Section 02
Alerts
What can an alert watch for?
Five things, and each alert watches one of them. New applications — somebody has applied and nobody is appointed. Newly approved jobs — permission has just been granted and the owner is choosing. Jobs about to start — conditions being discharged, which is the paperwork that clears weeks before a spade goes in. Owners who were turned down — refused recently with nothing filed since; nearly half come back with an amended scheme. Permissions running out — granted nearly 3 years ago, so the owner must begin within months or lose it.
Can one alert cover several towns?
Up to 10 places, each with its own distance. A patch is rarely one radius from one point — twenty miles around home, five around a town you know well, two around a city you will only cross for something worth crossing for — so every place you add has its own setting.
How often do they arrive, and what if nothing happens?
Daily or weekly, by email or text, and you can turn either off. A period with nothing new sends nothing at all.
Can I draw my own area on a map?
Not yet. Alerts take towns and postcodes with a distance around each, which covers most patches. Drawing a shape is on the list.
Section 03
Letters and outreach
Can I write to the owner?
You can write and print a letter from any application, on your own letterhead, with a live preview of the printed page — the preview is the printed page, not an approximation of it. Planning applications do not publish homeowner contact details, so letters are addressed to the property. Tradecue will not invent an address it does not have.
Do I have to print them one at a time?
No. Write letters as you go, then print the lot as a single job: one dialog, one stack of paper, in address order. Marking them sent is a separate press, so a printer jam does not silently mark twenty letters as posted.
Can you post them for me?
Yes. Press one button on a saved letter and we print it, fold it, put it in an envelope, stamp it and post it — £1.50 a letter, all in — printing, the envelope, the stamp and postage. No VAT to add. It is not a scattergun round through random doors: each letter is to a property that already has planning permission, has just sold, or has a poor EPC, so there is a public reason to think work is coming. You buy credit when you want it; there is no monthly charge for it and nothing expires.
Are there any you cannot post?
Some. A sold home comes with a full postal address from HM Land Registry, so those go without fuss. Planning registers publish one line of free text that is sometimes a description of a site rather than an address — “land rear of”, a garage block, a plot number — and a letter to one of those arrives nowhere. We check before you spend anything and tell you which it is, rather than posting hopefully and refunding you afterwards. If a letter does fail to go, the credit goes straight back.
What if nobody replies?
After 21 days we remind you which addresses have not come back to you, so the second letter goes out when it should rather than when you remember. It stops at three letters to one address, which is where marketing stops and pestering starts.
Can you post the letters for me?
Not at the moment — Tradecue writes and prints them, and posting is yours. We also hold no homeowner email addresses, so “email a copy” sends to you, not to the property.
Can I pass a job to somebody else?
Yes — every application and every card has a share control that hands the job to WhatsApp, a text message or an email, with the address, the proposal and a link. It opens your own phone’s apps; nothing is posted or stored by us.
Where do I change my company details?
Under Settings — your business name, contact details and logo fill the letterhead, and your letter templates live there too.
Section 04
Watchlist, pipeline and reports
What is the difference between the watchlist and the pipeline?
The watchlist is for keeping an eye on something: press Track on any application and it appears under Tracking, which shows what has changed since you last looked. The pipeline is for jobs you are actually chasing — stages, contact history and follow-up dates. A homeowner watching next door does not need a pipeline.
What are tags for?
Labelling what you track, however you work — “might contact”, “letter sent”, “not relevant”. They are yours alone, and you can filter the Tracking list by them.
What is in the report?
What we sent you over the last few months and what you did with it: alerts by area, how many you tracked, how many letters went out. It is there so you can tell whether the subscription is earning its keep, which is a question worth being able to answer honestly.
Can I get the data out?
Yes — any filtered list of leads exports to CSV, and it exports exactly what is on screen rather than everything we hold.
Section 05
Where the data comes from
Where does the data come from?
From the councils. We read individual council portals and the public APIs and open data feeds that planning authorities publish, and bring them together into one place. Every application links back to the council’s own record, which is the authoritative version of it.
What are EPC leads, and where do I find them?
EPC leads are domestic homes rated D to G where the published certificate shows scope to improve. They are not planning applications, and a certificate does not mean the owner intends to commission work. Search a place, then choose EPC above the results to browse them. Open one to see its rating and add it to your pipeline; saved EPC leads appear under Pipeline → EPC. They use the same letter and delivery options as other leads. Data comes from Domestic EPC Open Data; MEES and non-domestic enforcement data are not included.
And the maps and postcodes?
Postcode and place data from postcodes.io, derived from Ordnance Survey Open Names. Planning constraints and the register of local authorities from planning.data.gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Map tiles are © OpenStreetMap contributors.
How current is it?
We read each English council’s register daily, so new applications reach you as soon as the council makes them public. Councils publish on their own schedules, so the coverage page shows the most recent application we hold for each — a quiet council is usually a quiet week, not a missing one.
Do you cover my council?
The coverage page lists every planning authority in the UK by region, what we hold for each and when it last brought us something new. If yours is not there yet, tell us — it decides which register we write next.
Is every job in there?
No, and no service can be. Work that needs no application never reaches a public register: most re-roofs, bathrooms, rewires and anything under permitted development. What is missing, and why.
Something looks wrong.
Tell us and we will fix it. Report it here — wrong data is worth reporting even when the council’s own portal is the one at fault, because we would rather say so on the page than leave you to find out.
Section 06
Account and billing
What does it cost?
£29.99 a month for everything: every area, every alert type, sold homes, poor EPCs, letters on your letterhead. A year is £359.88 — one job covers it. See pricing. There is no per-postcode tier. Posting a letter for you is extra, £1.50 a letter, all in — printing, the envelope, the stamp and postage. No VAT to add.
How do I cancel?
Under Settings → Subscription, in one press. Everything keeps working to the end of the period you have paid for, nothing on the account is deleted, and you can turn it back on before it ends. We ask why, and the question is optional.
What happens to my letters and searches if I leave?
They stay on the account. Coming back later picks up where you left off rather than starting again.
Do you sell my data or send me anything I did not ask for?
No. The alerts you set up are the only email you get from us, other than the occasional message about the account itself. The privacy notice says what is held and why, in plain terms.
What Tradecue does with the week
Planning records sit behind hundreds of council portals, each with its own search, its own quirks and its own idea of what a date means. Here is what that turns into once it is all in one place.
| By hand | Tradecue | |
|---|---|---|
Every council in one search A portal covers one council. Working across a county means a tab each. | No | Yes |
Search by distance from your patch, not by council boundary Portals search their own boundary; a radius does not stop at it. | Partly | Yes |
Alerts for every area you cover, in one email Most portals do this — but one account, one saved search, per council. | Partly | Yes |
Newest applications first, before anyone is appointed A portal sorts one council. We sort everywhere you work, together. | Partly | Yes |
Told when something changes on a job you are watching Validated, consulted, decided — without going back to look. | No | Yes |
Estimated project value Published trade rates against the stated floor area. Estimates, not quotes. | No | Yes |
A letter already written, on your own letterhead Nineteen templates, one per trade, with the address and reference filled in. | No | Yes |
Printed, stamped and posted for you One button on a saved letter. No printer, no envelopes, no Post Office. | No | Yes |
A record of who you wrote to and when Tags, stages and contact history, rather than a notebook in the van. | No | Yes |
The drawings, one click away Straight through to the council’s own copy, which is always the current one. | Yes | Yes |
~ means the portal does it, with a catch worth knowing about.