First online planning application submitted 20 years ago!
It’s been twenty years since the first online planning application was submitted!
In 2002, Planning Portal was established by the UK government to provide an entry point to online planning information and allow planning applications in England and Wales to be submitted online.
And according to this RTPI News article from 4 April 2003, the first ever electronic planning application was submitted to Huntingdonshire District Council on 25 February 2003!
This is a significant milestone for us and represents a great opportunity to reflect on how the Planning Portal has not just benefitted, but revolutionised, the planning industry over the past twenty years.
The paper-based application system, which was widely used prior to the introduction of digital applications, is slow, error-prone and cumbersome.
Online planning applications have made the planning process vastly more efficient for stakeholders at every stage, allowing for faster processing times and easier collaboration between parties.
This same anniversary was remembered by the Planning Portal ten years ago. In a celebratory blog post from back then, we were gleeful to announce we had successfully processed 1.25 million online applications.
We also reflected that:
‘In that first year [2003] applications were counted in the low hundreds; today we are processing more than 25,000 each month.’
Well, fast-forward another ten years to 2023, and we now process around 50,000 applications per month. We have now also processed over 7 million online planning applications in total!
Although this represents a huge increase in the use of online planning applications, it is hardly surprising. The modern world is largely digital. We are very proud to have led the planning industry into the digital world with the service we created and championed.
During this time, in 2015, Planning Portal became a private entity, PortalPlanQuest ltd. PortalPlanQuest is a joint venture between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and TerraQuest Solutions.
Our world-leading application service is now the backbone of the modern planning system in the UK.
Over the years we have refined our service to ensure it is as streamlined, efficient and user-friendly as possible.
These updates have been successful in a large part due to our partnerships with our regular service users, as well as our close relationship with local authorities.
The application service now encompasses all sorts of helpful features, providing a fully integrated payment system that includes a payment nomination feature. Our service was also re-platformed last year, moving us over to an in-house platform built by our parent company TerraQuest. Since TerraQuest are a data solutions company, this new platform allows us to take a more agile and efficient approach to implementing service improvements.
In addition to these updates, we are launching an integrated location plan creation feature very soon.
Around our application service we have built a free, expansive hub of comprehensive online guidance, aimed at helping a range of different audiences to understand and navigate the planning and building approval processes.
This content is growing all the time, meaning users can stay informed and up to date on what can sometimes be a complex planning system. The Planning Portal also provide a building control application service, a fee calculator, a volume calculator, interactive guides, glossaries and many other services.
Visit our website to explore our full range of resources.
We are proud of how far our service has come, but we know we couldn’t have got to where we are now without the continued support of our partners across local authorities and private practice.
We commit ourselves to continuing to improve the service we provide, to make it as fit for purpose as possible, whilst nurturing and growing the industry relationships which are so important to us.
Our mission is to continue to transform planning and building for everybody – here’s to another twenty years of digital transformation!
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