From deciding planning applications to helping people win them.

Martin Gaine worked for many years as a council case officer before realising that some applicants, submitting minor applications, were getting a raw deal from the planning system. He founded Just Planning to provide them with planning services tailored to their needs.

His first encounter with the planning system as an applicant came when his own application for a simple extension to his home was refused, without good reason. He appealed and won, and realised that many householders would have accepted the decision without knowing that an appeal was a real option.

He writes about planning for The Times, The Telegraph and Build It magazine, and answers readers' planning questions in the Ask the Expert section of the Sunday Times Home supplement and the Property Clinic section of the Daily Mail.

His book How to Get Planning Permission: An Insider's Secrets helps homeowners get permission for extensions and other smaller developments. His newer book, Planning for HMOs, helps landlords and investors in houses in multiple occupation through increasingly complicated HMO planning controls.

Martin also founded My Planning Appeal, an express appeals consultancy offering fixed-cost appeals under the Part 1 Written Representations procedure introduced in April 2026. Today he is a chartered planning consultant and chief executive of Just Planning, a consultancy focused on helping homeowners and small developers through the planning system.