Birmingham City Council recently held its first electronic planning committee after ditching paper and using tablet computers.
Some of you may have read the city council started issuing tablet computers for its planning committee members as part of a pilot scheme in late November.
The six-month trial began at its 22nd November meeting, initially using the tablet devices in parallel with paper copies of agendas. Read more…
The Government has begun consulting on changes to current planning policy in relation to the strategic road network in general and roadside facilities like motorway service areas in particular.
One consequence of this initiative, signalled by roads minister Philip Hammond, would be the removal of the requirement for minimum distances between “signed roadside facilities”. Read more…
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has announced he is ‘minded’ to approve developer Fox Strategic Land’s proposals for a 280-dwelling development at Sandbach in Cheshire, subject to a “satisfactory” agreement on affordable housing provision.
The Secretary of State had earlier refused consent for the scheme, the subject of a recovered appeal, in September 2011, in line with Cheshire East Council’s opposition to the project. Read more…
Two major onshore wind farms with a combined capacity of over 110 megawatts have obtained planning approval – one in England and the other in Wales.
The larger of the two schemes was Ecotricity’s 22-turbine project at Heckington Fen in Lincolnshire. The 66 MW wind farm was the subject of section 36 Electricity Act 1989 consent from energy secretary Ed Davey. Read more…
Redevelopment plans for a former Derbyshire ironworks hit by fire last year and involving nearly 2,000 new homes and a 60-acre business park have been submitted to Erewash Borough Council.
The mixed-use scheme for the former Stanton Ironworks near the boundary between Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire includes proposals for 1,950 new homes, retail units, restaurants, community facilities, a health centre, a 150-bed centre for the elderly, a primary school as well as office, warehouse and industrial units totalling some 70,000 square metres of floor space and new roads. Read more…
London mayor Boris Johnson has assembled a team of experts to assess the feasibility of the most realistic of the proposed new multi-runway hub airport projects for south-east England.
To date around 15 different proposals for a new hub airport in the South East have been made public. The Mayor has consulted on criteria that will be used to evaluate those proposals and establish a shortlist. Read more…
Seaside project towns receive £16m funding
Some 20 English seaside towns are being allocated a total of £16m in project finance courtesy of the government’s Coastal Communities Fund administered by Communities and Local Government.
The schemes – which will benefit from grants of up to £2.6m – will deliver nearly 4,000 jobs, support 250 new business start-ups and create more than 1,500 apprenticeships and 400 volunteering opportunities. Read more…
A significant amount of our traffic comes from referrals (incoming links) from local planning authority websites.
In fact, around one in five (the figure varies) of site visitors arrive at the Planning Portal on journeys that started on a LPA website.
As such we’re keen that local planning authorities link effectively to our website to make sure the experience for users is as straightforward as possible. Read more…
Young architects and designers who have been in practice for no more than five years are invited to participate in a competition to design a housing project for the Island of St Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Sounds like fun and the site visits could be spectacular.
Good luck.
The Planning Portal data elves have been busy this month presenting the total number and fee value of applications submitted through the Portal on a Google map.
The first map shows the total number and type of applications submitted via the Portal in January 2013.
Note this doesn’t represent every application submitted during the month as some were submitted on paper (we’re still working on that…). Read more…
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