Planning Portal visit the House of Lords to celebrate 20 years of service
On 27 February, Planning Portal had the pleasure of celebrating our 20th Anniversary at the House of Lords, sharing the occasion with many of our customers, partners and colleagues who have supported us over the years.
The event was a chance for us to celebrate and reflect. We are incredibly proud of how the service has grown and developed over the past 20 years, allowing us to digitise and streamline the planning system for everyone.
We were honoured to welcome Joanna Averley, Chief Planner of the Department of Levelling up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to open the event.
Joanna spoke on the aptitude of the government having the foresight to set up the Planning Portal 20 years ago, noting that prior to its privatisation in 2015 the Portal was processing around 50% of applications online, a figure which has now risen to nearly 90%. She touched on the significance of DLUHC retaining a stake in Planning Portal and how crucial the Portal is in delivering the planning application system.
Following Joanna’s speech, Sarah Chilcott, the managing director of the Planning Portal, took to the stand to speak about the history of our service. Sarah reminisced on the Portal’s conception, when we were one of the government’s first ever ‘digital by default’ services, and on the moment that our newest version of the service was built in-house by TerraQuest – a development which gave us the platform to enable a fully-fledged digital future for our industry.
In her speech, Sarah emphasised the work that has gone into building trusting relationships with Local Authorities across England and Wales, and the professional planning and architectural consultancies that regularly use our service to submit applications. These partnerships are vitally important to us and to the success of the industry as a whole. Planning Portal dedicate ourselves to nurturing these relationships and continuing to develop them as our service continues to grow into the future.
Sarah also spoke on the future of the Portal, emphasising that we will continue to take steps towards modernisation and digitisation within the planning process, which includes our plan to integrate our planning and building control application services.
It was brilliant to be able to celebrate our successes with so many key figures from the industry. Many guests also took to social media to share their appreciation following the event.
Helen Oakerbee, Assistant Director of Planning at the London Borough of Havering expressed her thoughts on the day via LinkedIn:
“A big thank you to the Planning Portal for inviting me to their House of Lords reception this afternoon to celebrate their 20th birthday.
The progress made in the digital planning space has been great to see over the years and the Portal has been at the forefront of that, contributing massively to how planning applications are submitted to LPAs.”
Gary Morris, Partner at Alder King Property Consultants, MRTPI also shared his views on Planning Portal’s service since conception:
“The Planning Portal revolutionised the planning application submission process when it launched in 2002. It has since matured into a highly effective and easy to use tool, facilitating easy access to the planning system for everyone. The recent re-launch by TerraQuest brought even greater usability, helping Alder King submit over 330 applications through the Planning Portal in 2022 alone.”
We look forward to continuing working with all our partners into the future to make the digital planning and development process more spatially enabled and as efficient and transparent as possible for all those involved.
You can find more feedback on the event and have your say by visiting our social media:
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