Included in every case fee
One person has this,
and you know who.
Not a ticket queue, not a shared inbox, and not seven consultants who each hold one part of it. One chartered professional carries the case from the day it is paid for to the day the decision notice arrives.
Where it is
Eight stages, named for who is holding it.
Not for what the database calls it. The question anyone actually has is whether they are waiting on us, on their planner or on the council, so the stage answers that first.
- 01
Drafting
We are preparing your documents.
Waiting on wren - 02
In review
Your chartered planner is reading and revising them.
Waiting on your planner - 03
Ready for you
The pack is signed. It needs your approval before it can be filed.
Needs you - 04
Approved
You have authorised the filing. Your planner is lodging it.
Waiting on your planner - 05
Submitted
It is with the council.
Waiting on the council - 06
Validated
The council has accepted it and the statutory clock has started.
Waiting on the council - 07
Consultation
Neighbours and consultees are being asked. Then the officer assesses it.
Waiting on the council - 08
Decision
The council has decided, and the notice is on your file.
Waiting on the council
Language
Three words, used precisely.
We
What the platform does. Preparing drafts, gathering constraints, keeping you informed.
Your chartered planner
Professional judgement, and anything carrying their name. Reviewing, signing, completing the council's forms, assembling the filing, handling amendments, discharging conditions, preparing an appeal.
The council
Anything the local planning authority does.
The test the product applies to every sentence it shows you: whose professional indemnity covers this claim.
The council
Council correspondence lands on your file, not in someone's inbox.
Each case has its own email address. When the council writes to it, the message goes on your timeline with its attachments.
The address carries the case reference, so a reply routes itself even after a council case-management system has rewritten the subject line four times. Replies quote the original message identifier back, which is the difference between one thread about your application and four unrelated ones.
Mail that does not come from an address we recognise for that council is held for a person to look at rather than dropped. A silently rejected council email is the worst available outcome: the council believes it has replied, you see nothing, and no record exists anywhere that anything arrived. So it is recorded first and judged second.
Visibility
What you can see, and when
Every document on your case is visible from the moment it exists, with its status. You can read its contents once it is signed. That line is enforced where the file is served, not by hiding a button, and it is where it is for two reasons. The commercial one is obvious. The professional one matters more: an unsigned draft is a proposal to a chartered planner, and a document bearing a case reference that no planner has stood behind is not something you should be acting on.
Everything else is open. The full timeline, every status change with its date, every message, every piece of council correspondence we have accepted, the planner’s name and chartered body, your invoice and your receipt.
Status changes arrive by email within the hour, because “your council has validated your application” is worth having quickly and worthless by the following morning. A case that has gone quiet gets a message saying so rather than silence.
Also on your file
- The exact document versions you approved, with a checksum
- The signature record: name, chartered body, membership number, time
- The council's reference once it is validated
- The target decision date the statutory clock produced
- The decision notice, and the approved plans when they follow
- An invoice and a receipt, both re-downloadable
Honest
What case management does not mean here
Two things worth being direct about.
Wren does not employ salaried case managers. The person carrying your case is the chartered professional who signs it, and they are paid once for all of it. That is a deliberate structure rather than a gap: a case handled by someone who never has to put their name on anything is a case where nobody is exposed.
And the stages after your approval are recorded by a person, because they happen outside this system. Somebody completes the council’s forms on the council’s own portal, pays the fee and lodges the pack. Days later a validation email arrives. Weeks later a decision notice does. None of that touches Wren, so none of it moves your case on its own. Your planner records each one, and each rung has a hard precondition: a case cannot be marked validated without the council’s reference, and cannot be marked decided without the decision notice attached.
Start here
See who would be carrying it.
Every case is led by a chartered professional whose name, body and membership number are on your file from the day they are assigned.
Wondering what happens after the council decides? Conditions, amendments and appeals.