Our technical partners will need to take the Portal offline on Tuesday 16th December between 05:00 and 07:00.
This is for some essential maintenance.
We’ve tried to pick a quiet time for Portal customers but I apologise if this causes any inconvenience.
Update 21.1.15: The NPCU have advised me that they have updated their interactive tool with data from the most recent quarter.
I thought I’d take a moment to highlight some of the good work that other teams in DCLG are doing to improve transparency in the planning system.
In October the National Planning Casework Unit (NPCU) launched an interactive map to showcase its data. The NPCU manages planning decisions on behalf of the Secretary of State for DCLG.
The interactive map shows the parts of the country and approximate location the NPCU has considered cases from and the decisions taken.
The data in the tool is based on decision data for referrals under the Consultation Direction 2009, Third Party Requests to Intervene, Compulsory Purchase Orders and Environmental Screening Directions from April 2014 onwards.
By releasing the data, the NCPU hopes to provide an open and accessible insight in its casework and increase the information available in the public domain. For future releases the NCPU is looking to increase the amount of data available, including on other case types.
The service forms part of DCLG’s OpenDataCommunities initiative to increase amount of data the public can access.
I first became aware of this wonderful building in March 2013 and ran a post on the plans and a subsequent update during construction.
There was a great deal of interest and comment on the posts at the time so I was pleased to see earlier this week that the building beat off stiff opposition to win an international award for high rise buildings.
Follow the link for more images and info.
I am truly disappointed to announce that the Planning Portal team have been unsuccessful in our bid to take on the future operation of the Portal as an employee-owned business.
The bid team of Allen, Scott and myself have now returned to the bosom of the Portal team and wrested back our previous roles.
I’d really like to thank all our supporters and partners for their backing and look forward to working with the future owner once the commercialisation process concludes.
In the meantime, I am not able to enter into any discussion about the ongoing process and would ask that you direct any questions to DCLG.
Next Friday (21 November) we will be rolling out some improvements to our planning application address services.
We are going to start using a new source of data, which is the same data source that LPAs use to identify site address information utilising the NLPG-equivalent (National Land and Property Gazetteer) data from OS AddressBase when users create planning applications.
The neat bit about using this data is that we can carry across the UPRN value (Unique Property Reference Number) which is used by the LPA to identify the property in the authority’s back office and GIS systems, speeding up the application process.
The update will also let us map county data more accurately, and the data will be updated every six weeks to capture any changes made by local authorities.
Applicants will also be able to create an application for addresses without a postcode more easily.
The change is going live on Friday 21 November between 05:00 and 07:00. This will require a site outage.
photo credit: Nomadic Lass via photopin cc
While gunpowder, treason and plot were being commemorated across the country last week, we were recording a significant event of our own…
November 5th saw the 2 millionth planning application submitted via the Planning Portal.
It took 86 months to get the first million, another 19 months to reach 1.5 million and a further 15 months to get to 2 million.
Here’s to the next million, perhaps even some time in 2015?
Our colleagues in Defra have been in touch regarding a project they are working on for local authority planners.
The project aims to help planners assess applications that could affect protected species.
To research, develop and test the new content they are looking for volunteers from local planning authorities to help them. This will involve a roughly 30 minute phone call.
If you can help please get in touch with Defra’s Kate Evans direct.
DCLG has reported 123,200 total applications for English councils in the quarter ending June 2014 – a 1% decrease from April-June 2013.
In the same period, Wales Government reported 7,017 total applications – a rise of 14.1%.
For the same period the Planning Portal processed 112,817 online applications (a rise of 19.4% on the same quarter last year).
This means that approximately 86% of planning applications were submitted via the Portal in Q1 2014/15.
DCLG’s latest planning statistics.
WG’s latest planning statistics.
Updated: 9 October 2014 in response to comments
Below is a breakdown of applications through the Portal for Apr-June 2013 and the same period 2014. Some of the changes are as a result of policy changes or the introduction of new form types into 1app, but it gives you an idea of how different the profile is. We can’t show this in relation to the PS1/2 data as it collected/published by application type.
The number of local planning authorities (LPAs) in England who have successfully achieved Champion status in our Smarter Planning scheme continues to grow.
A number of tough best-practice standards must be met before LPAs can be recognised as Smarter Planning Champions, all of which must be fully adopted to confirm their commitment to accept planning applications online and to process them in smarter, faster and more consistent way for their customers.
The map can be viewed on the Portal’s Smarter Planning pages. Read more…
You can now make non-material amendments to existing planning permissions in Wales.
The Planning Portal team have been working alongside Welsh Government to make the Welsh NMA paper forms available on the Portal.
The forms and associated help guide went live on Monday 1 September and can be accessed here:
We intend to introduce the Welsh non-material amendments form into the online application system, fee calculator and paper form chooser in due course.
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