Starter home planning policy initiative confirmed
The Government this week kick-started its ambitious scheme to generate starter homes, which will be offered to young, first-time buyers at a 20 per cent discount, paid for by exempting developers from infrastructure payments.
Latest English household formation projections published
The Department for Communities and Local Government has published its latest official projections of household formations, estimating the formation of 5.2 million new households in England between 2012 and 2037.
Pickles blocks Gladman housing schemes in Buckinghamshire and Cheshire
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has dismissed two separate appeals by Gladman Developments involving proposals for sites in Buckinghamshire and Cheshire.
Devolution package proposes greater planning powers for Wales
The Coalition has confirmed moves to give the Welsh administration greater planning powers in line with the recommendations of the Silk Commission.
News round-up 5 March 2015
An overview of the other planning stories of this week…
Update: 16:20. The Portal site is now back up.
We are currently experiencing a technical issue with the Planning Portal, which means the site has been unavailable since late morning.
First and foremost: please accept my apologies for the inconvenience this is causing you.
We are working hard with our technical partner to resolve this issue.
In February we received 40,624 online applications, which equates to 38,177 total submissions – a huge 19.3% increase on the same period 12 months ago.
In line, the work-day averages for submissions have also increased. February was a record month with 1,863 applications submitted each working day. So far March is even higher with daily submissions hovering around the 2,000 mark. The work-day average for online applications in March has roughly doubled from 2012
This chart shows the change in daily submission over the last few years.
Does this indicate an increase in total planning applications or just those submitted online?
We won’t know for sure until DCLG publishes its PS1/2 returns reports sometime later this month but we suspect it’s a bit of both.
So, Chris is off to pastures new and though we’re disappointed that he decided not to join us on the next phase in the Portal’s evolution, the team’s enthusiasm to get cracking continues unabated.
The team and I will do our best to move this blog on along in the next few months and will continue to keep you up to date with the improvements and developments here as they happen.
One immediate change you’ll notice is that from this week I’ll also be posting our weekly news headlines. They’ve been popular when we’ve posted them in the past so I hope you’ll enjoy them. Do let me have your feedback on this and indeed anything else – I’m sure you won’t by shy!
For long-term blog subscribers, you may remember me holding the reins whilst Chris was leading our bid last year. For those that don’t, I’m one of the Portal’s deputy directors, focused on delivering the best possible experience to our customers – agents, applicants and LPAs alike.
I’m a relative newbie in Portal terms – I’ve only been here six years! Feel free to look me up on LinkedIn, where I’d be happy to connect.
Sarah
35,652 Online Planning Applications passed through the Planning Portal cogs and wheels in January 2015, a whopping 14.6% increase on January 2014.
If you keep up submitting at that level for the remainder of the year we’ll easily process half a million app’s in a single year!
I couldn’t let the milestone pass without comment now could I!
As of the past weekend there’s now been more half a million views of the blog since I launched it back in 2009, in which time I have published 465 posts, which have received around 3,000 comments and attracted more than 1,000 followers.
Commercial matters have meant that I’ve needed to keep a lower than customary (for me) profile of late however I hope to ramp up the content and interactivity in the very near future.
It’s an exciting time for the Portal and I’m looking forward to getting into lively debates about the our new direction and all the good stuff it will bring.
Thanks for reading.
Chris
It’s been a while coming but it can now be revealed that TerraQuest has been chosen by DCLG to partner with them in a joint venture to provide the ongoing delivery and commercialisation of the Planning Portal service.
The joint venture has indicated it will not charge applicants or LPAs for using the Portal’s 1App planning application service and that a new and improved 1App and website will be delivered by TerraQuest’s prime subcontractor Civica, later in 2015. The existing service will remain in place until the new website is launched – so there will be no disruption to our customers.
It is the intention to transfer staff to the new business before the end of the financial year however the JV is subject to final negotiation and therefore any questions regarding the process of commercialisation should be directed to PlanningPortalFuture@communities.gsi.gov.uk
The Portal team look forward to working with TerraQuest and DCLG in the new joint venture and are excited at the prospect of moving the service forward.
The day-to-day planning operations of South Oxfordshire DC and Vale of White Horse DC are still being affected by last week’s devastating office fire.
The two planning authorities (who shared the same office) asked us to communicate the following update to applicants:
LATEST UPDATE: Monday 19 January
Our website is now live again following the major fire at our main offices in Crowmarsh last week.
However, some parts of our website work on systems that we are still restoring and might not work as normal, for example online application forms and reporting. Also, as our phone service isn’t completely restored, some phone numbers may not work.
In the next day or two we hope to be able to provide you with a more detailed update on what services we have available through our website.
It will probably take a week before we can restore our IT systems, so we’re kindly asking residents to please only get in touch if they have a genuine emergency. If you do have an emergency, please call 01235 520202.
Planning is the main area of our website affected by the fire and we are asking residents not to submit any planning applications until further notice. Our planning application register is currently not available so you are unable to view or comment on existing applications on our website. We will provide an update early next week.
Our thoughts are with those planning colleagues affected by the fire.
In case you missed it, DCLG has challenged local authorities and other parties to come up with new and innovative ways of communicating statutory notices.
If you can think of a better way of advertising a planning application than attaching it to a lamppost then you have until 28th January to submit a proposal to DCLG to apply to take part in a pilot.
The article on GOV.uk states: “The pilots will explore how we change statutory notices so that they reach more people, are easier to read, give greater visibility and transparency to big issues and reduce costs in a sustainable way.”
More information and an application form are available on GOV.uk
Last year we added a useful tool to help applicants and agents easily identify the payment options local authorities support when submitting online.
We have now updated the tool. The latest version of the LPA Payment Options Checker is available to download from the Planning Portal’s Useful Tools page (you’ll need Excel installed).
This should help agents plan which payment method to use as the application service doesn’t tell you the different methods LPAs support up front.
Hopefully this will help to manage customer expectations around registration and validation.
Non-receipt of the fee remains one of the top reasons for LPAs invalidating online applications. This is most common where the application and all supporting documents are sent online but the fee is paid by cheque.
Receipt of the fee is a requirement for validation and due to postal delays there’s no guarantee LPAs will receive it in good time causing administrative delays.
To help with this validation issue we have been encouraging LPAs to support additional payment options, including payment by telephone and via the council website.
Both these options let the applicant or agent pay quickly and efficiently, which in turn lets the LPA register and validate applications – a win-win situation.
Finally, a request to LPAs: please check the payment options you support.
It would be great if you could spend a couple of minutes checking that your payment options are correct including the cheque payment address.
There are still quite a few LPAs without a cheque payment address which could mean chasing payment or cheques being sent to the wrong address – with lots of office moves recently we don’t want the cheque going astray.
An instruction on how to update your details can be found on the Planning Portal.
Planning Portal Blog 