Invalid planning applications – survey
At the Planning Portal, we are always working towards minimising validation delays. Over recent years we have conducted research in partnership with agents and local authorities to help us understand more about the issue of invalidation.
This research has highlighted some of the main reasons behind invalid applications and has led to the launch of ReQuestaPlan, our compliant site location and block plan tool, and more recently our application payment service. It has also helped us to improve the advice and guidance we give to customers submitting applications, bringing down the number of invalid applications across the country.
However, we are always striving to improve our service.
With this in mind, we’ve designed a short survey to help us capture data on applications submitted by your organisation that may have experienced a validation delay. The information you provide will help improve our system and achieve greater efficiencies for all involved in the process. The survey should take around 15 minutes to complete and you can view a pdf of the questions here.
The feedback will be collated, analysed and put into a report that we will share with agents and those that regularly submit applications. We have also sent a similar survey to local authorities. This means we can evaluate feedback from everyone involved in the application process, to create a complete end-to-end report.
If you require any further information or any assistance in completing the survey, please contact communications@planningportal.co.uk.
Planning Portal Blog 
Too much unnecessary personal detail requested in this survey that are irrelevant to the information solicited.
Hi Chris, the survey is optional and designed to capture information about your experience of validation delays, help us to understand the reasons and if we can develop our service further to reduce these delays.
Any personal data provided will not be shared outside of the Planning Portal and will be held securely. The data will only be used for the purpose it is collected, such as if we need to contact you for more detail about a comment made.
Regards, Portal content team
Sometimes trying to find local validation lists for different authorities can be a chore. While some place a link to their local validation lists front and centre on their primary planning pages, others seem to bury it behind several other pages on their websites.
I do think the website interface for ReQuestaPlan is excellent. It properly scales for different device screens (mobile, tablet, laptop). The same cannot be said for several other mapping websites.
Thank you for your feedback, Christopher.
You may have also noticed that ReQuestaPlan has had a upgrade recently to introduce new features.
Your new application fee payment system is excellent as it sends a clear message to the client (applicant) that the application progress is entirely dependent on he/she paying the fee online. I think they like that empowerment as well!