Beta · For UK planning consultants and architects
Stop reading 200 appeal decisions to find the three that matter.
PAI is the AI research and drafting workspace for UK planning. Search every PINS decision, get answers cited to real cases, and draft what you'd write next — in minutes, not days.
Three recent decisions allowed conversion in the Green Belt where very special circumstances were accepted. The strongest precedent is Case 3245678 — the Inspector found that economic re-use of a redundant agricultural building outweighed harm to openness, given the building's sound condition.
See also Case 3198104 for a similar grain store conversion in West Berkshire.
What it does
Three jobs. One workspace.
Search every case, and every document inside it.
116,000+ Planning Inspectorate appeal cases, with every document indexed down to the paragraph. Filter by authority, outcome and date, search the full text of any document, or just ask in plain English. Hybrid keyword + semantic search, then reranked.
Get answers anchored to real cases.
Every [Case 3245678] reference is a real decision, not a hallucination. Click any citation to jump straight to the source document, opened on the paragraph that mattered.
Draft the documents you'd write next.
Statements of case, planning statements, proofs of evidence, heritage impact assessments, design & access statements, risk analyses. PAI drafts. You edit. You keep the pen.
The corpus
Fresh, not frozen.
Built on the Planning Inspectorate's published decisions, scraped continuously. The corpus you search today includes decisions from this month.
Trust
Cited, so you can check.
Other AI tools confidently invent case references. PAI doesn't — every [Case …] in an answer is a real PINS decision, one click from the source document opened on the exact paragraph.
AI can still get things wrong, so we make it fast to verify everything it tells you.
The strongest precedent is Case 3245678 — the Inspector accepted that the building's economic re-use outweighed Green Belt harm.
See para 47 for the VSC reasoning, and Case 3198104 for a parallel grain store decision.
Paragraphs 45–47
47. I find that the economic re-use of this redundant agricultural building, in sound structural condition and well-served by the existing access, constitutes very special circumstances which clearly outweigh the harm to the openness of the Green Belt…
Three strong precedents: Case 3245678, Case 3198104 and Case 3271993. All allowed on VSC grounds for analogous redundant rural buildings.
Drafted — see the panel on the right. I've marked site-specific details with [placeholders] for you to fill.
1. The Site
The appeal site comprises a single-storey agricultural building at [Site Address] within the Metropolitan Green Belt.
2. Grounds of Appeal
The application was refused on [Refusal Date] on the grounds that the proposal would constitute inappropriate development. The Appellant submits that very special circumstances exist, supported by Case 3245678 and Case 3198104.
Drafting
From your refusal notice to a finished draft, in one conversation.
Drop in your refusal notice, site plans or any background you have. Ask PAI to find the precedents that matter. Read the analysis. Then say “draft me a statement of case” — and it will, in the side panel, citing the precedents it used and marking site-specific details with [placeholders] for you to fill.
Drafts are versioned. Revise as you go. You keep the pen.
What it'll draft for you
- Statement of case
- Planning statement
- Proof of evidence
- Heritage impact assessment
- Design & access statement
- Risk analysis
- Comparison tables, memos, and anything else you describe
How you work
A workspace, not a chatbot.
Projects
Group chats by client, site or appeal. One project per job.
Bookmarks
Save the cases that matter to each project for later.
Your files, on hand
Upload site plans, refusal notices, statements. Reuse across chats.
Shareable links
Send a chat to a colleague or client with one URL. Read-only, no sign-in needed.
Frontier AI
Powered by the latest models from Anthropic and Google. We pick the right one for the job, with extended thinking on the harder questions.
Document viewer
Every appeal document parsed and rendered for fast reading, with one-click jumps to the exact paragraph cited.
Roadmap
Coming next.
Case alerts
Watch a specific case and get an email the moment it updates.
Regional monitoring
Subscribe to an authority or region — get notified when relevant new decisions land.
NPPF 2026 support
As the revised National Planning Policy Framework lands this year, PAI will help you re-assess live applications, understand what’s changed, and surface precedents that still apply under the new rules.
Pricing
Free for now, while we're in beta.
Paid plans will arrive once we're out of beta. Beta users will get meaningful discounts and plenty of notice before anything changes.
Beta
Early access, while we're in beta.
We're working with a small group of consultants and architects to refine PAI. It's free for now, while we're in beta. If your work involves planning appeals — or you wish someone had built a better way to research them — leave your email and we'll get you in.
Who's behind PAI
PAI is a project by Studio Bark — environmental architects crafting radical, zero-carbon design — in collaboration with David Sinclair, a product builder and engineer working on tools for the built environment.