About PlanPost
Built for builders who want to win more work.
PlanPost exists because the best builders in the country were relying on word of mouth for their next job, and never reaching the potential their work deserves.
Our story
The problem we set out to fix
Every day, homeowners submit planning applications for extensions, loft conversions and new builds. Those applications are public record, published by councils across the UK. They represent real, qualified demand from people who are going to spend money on construction work.
The problem is finding them. There are 389 local planning authorities, each with a different portal, different search interface and different update schedule. Large construction firms have admin teams who scan them daily. Everyone else misses out.
PlanPost was built to fix that. We monitor every council, every day, and deliver matched planning applications to builders who set up their area and project types in under five minutes. Then we print and post a personalised letter to the homeowner on their behalf.
The result: builders get in front of homeowners before their competitors even know the job exists. No waiting for the phone to ring, no buying stale data, no printing and posting letters by hand. Just fresh planning leads, delivered to their dashboard, with a branded letter on the homeowner's doormat the next day.
Meet the founders
The team behind PlanPost
PlanPost was built by Tom and Ben Thorns, the team behind the property business Living Smart and the software and marketing company Solid Digital Marketing. Between them they have spent years on the client side of UK construction: buying sites, filing the planning applications and hiring the builders to carry out the work. They built PlanPost to put the best local builders first in the queue for exactly that work, and they run it from Altrincham, Greater Manchester.
Tom is a computer scientist, with a First-Class degree from the University of Manchester and early roles at Sun Microsystems and Accenture before he co-founded Solid Digital Marketing. Alongside Ben he built Living Smart into a property business that has bought, developed and sold more than £14m of homes across the North West. Tom leads engineering at PlanPost and builds the platform itself.
- First-Class BSc Computer Science, University of Manchester
- Early career at Sun Microsystems and Accenture
- Co-founder of Living Smart and Solid Digital Marketing
- Leads engineering and builds the PlanPost platform
Ben is a property developer and investor with more than 15 years sourcing, developing and managing residential real estate across the North West. Through Living Smart he leads acquisitions, refurbishment and lettings across a retained portfolio of more than 70 rental homes, working with councils, housing associations and registered providers. He leads the commercial side of PlanPost, backed by a career in digital marketing and data-driven lead generation.
- Business Administration, Manchester Metropolitan University
- Co-founder of Living Smart and Solid Digital Marketing
- 15+ years sourcing, developing and managing residential property
- Background in digital marketing and data-driven lead generation
“We've spent years filing planning applications and hiring builders to do the work. PlanPost makes sure the best local builders are the first to know that work exists.”
What we believe
Level the playing field
You should compete on the quality of your work, not the size of your admin team. PlanPost gives every builder the same access to planning data that used to be reserved for firms with dedicated researchers.
Save time for the work that matters
You should be on site, not scanning council portals. PlanPost runs in the background: monitoring, matching, printing and posting while you build.
Real data from the source
PlanPost pulls directly from council planning portals. Not scraped, not resold, not weeks old. Live data, checked every 24 hours, from all 389 UK planning authorities.