Following my earlier post about the revision of the CIL additional information form, I’m happy to confirm that feedback was received from many LPAs and a revised form agreed and approved by an LPA focus group, led by Wandsworth Council, and DCLG policy colleagues.
The Portal team is now developing the revised form and aim to make this available later this month. The approved form questions and guidance are available for preview here: CIL additional information form
Once the revised form has been created (the linked PDF is just for informational purposes, the layout hasn’t been done yet), it will replace the existing form. Read more…
For the second month in a row the Portal has experienced record breaking usage figures.
In February we served up more than 9 million page views to 398,163 unique visitors, despite it being a shorter month.
The site received more than 30,000 visits a day, an increase of 34% on February 2011 and equating to 300,000 daily page impressions.
I’ll be holding my breath as March is generally the busiest month of the year – will the Portal hit the 10 million mark?
If you are in the business of planning and want to reach the widest range of new customers either B2B or citizen you should be talking to our commercial team.
We recently hosted a couple of free events in collaboration with RTPI, RICS, RIBA and CIAT which proved very popular. We have one more free event taking place on Tuesday 20 March at our Eland House in Victoria – in other words, DCLG’s HQ.
The theme of the events is ‘Planning for Growth’ and focuses on how new ways of working (such as submitting your applications online) can help support the Government’s growth plans as well as save you time and money. The event will be of particular interest to planning professionals. Read more…
The following group of local authorities have all averaged more than 60% of their planning applications online throughout quarters 1-3, 2011, 22 of them have averaged greater than 70%. A fantastic performance I hope you’ll agree.
Particular mention should go to Melton who have risen from 52.1% to 78.5% online and Stevenage from 43.6% to 68.8%.
| Ealing Council London Borough | 88.0% |
| Craven | 86.7% |
| Brecon Beacons NPA (Powys NP) | 85.5% |
| London Borough of Hackney | 85.4% |
| Hinckley and Bosworth | 84.1% |
| Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough | 81.7% |
| Oadby and Wigston | 80.1% |
| Coventry | 74.6% |
| Charnwood | 74.4% |
| Merton Council LB | 74.1% |
| Lambeth Council LB | 73.6% |
| Westminster City Council | 72.3% |
| Preston | 72.1% |
| Bristol UA | 71.8% |
| Bedford Borough Council | 71.6% |
| King’s Lynn and West Norfolk | 71.1% |
| Tower Hamlets LB | 71.1% |
| Stoke on Trent UA | 70.7% |
| Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea | 70.6% |
| Rutland UA | 70.5% |
| Derbyshire Dales | 70.4% |
| Camden Council | 70.3% |
| Hyndburn | 69.2% |
| Islington Council LB | 69.1% |
| East Riding of Yorkshire UA | 68.9% |
| Daventry | 67.1% |
| Redditch | 67.1% |
| Melton | 67.0% |
| Manchester | 66.9% |
| Lancaster | 66.7% |
| Rushmoor | 66.6% |
| Welwyn Hatfield | 66.4% |
| Haringey Council London Borough | 66.3% |
| Greenwich Council London Borough | 63.7% |
| Fenland | 63.6% |
| Salford | 63.3% |
| Newcastle-under-Lyme | 61.7% |
The data is not exact and should be taken as a close approximation using the most recently available PS1 returns.
In Quarter 3, 2011, 126 local authorities in England and Wales achieved this same milestone. I’ll be following up in the near future with features on some of these authorities and also on some of the individuals and teams that are making an impact.
In all the excitement about reaching the one millionth application milestone (did I mention that?) I haven’t had a chance to update you on some other developments in the Portal in the last couple of weeks.
We’ve recently been working with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to improve their own application processes. Read more…
At the risk of sounding unremittingly positive I can report that our traffic figures for January were by some margin the best month we’ve ever had.
There were 898,020 visits, an increase of 23.6% from January 2011 and 70,000 more than our previous best month.
We were also just shy of 9 million page views, a 300,000 increase on the previous best.
Additionally there were 170,566 downloads of the Building Regulations Approved Documents, an increase of 20.5% on January 2011.
Finally, we also believe that we’ve passed our March 2012 target of 60% of planning applications online, but we’ll need to wait for the next quarter PS1 results to confirm it.
All in all, not a bad start to 2012 our 10th anniversary year.
On Friday, 19th of February at 4.07 o’clock our one millionth online planning application was submitted by a member of the public to Hinckley & Bosworth.
When we launched the Portal we had no idea whether the concept would work but we had a great passion to improve the planning process. Ten years on I believe we’ve made a positive impact.
Many of the original Portal team are still here and while some have moved on all have contributed enormously along the way.
We have always tried to work collaboratively with industry, Government and citizens and held the difficult ground between all three against a shifting political and economic landscape.
I would like to thank everyone that has contributed to this success, from LPAs to agents, architects and housebuilders, home improvers and plansmiths, colleagues, partners and friends.
Particular mention should be made of Graham Saunders who had the original idea for the Portal while at the Planning Inspectorate and to Richard Goodwin who as the Portal’s first director did much to establish the ethos and culture that enabled the team to flourish from the beginning.
Many LPAs helped and supported us along the way but I’d like to say a special thank you to Neil Coleman and Huntingdonshire District Council who were the first to sign up and to Martin Howell and Wandsworth who gave us invaluable help and support.
Here’s to the next million, which we anticipate will take less than three years.
Finally, a round up of the statistics. One million online planning applications has:
* Saved UK businesses and local authorities in the region of £285m
* Saved 32,000,000 pieces of paper (64,000 reams)
* Saved more than 8,000 tonnes of CO2
We anticipate our millionth application in the next hour – will it be yours?
Some valuable free publicity is available if it is.
As of 09.00am, Friday 17 February 2012 the total number of planning applications submitted online via the Portal was 999,308
The donuts have been purchased and the fizz is in the fridge.
I anticipate the millionth application being submitted either later today or early tomorrow.
At about 10:00 this morning the total number of online submissions processed by the Portal reached 998,281 leaving just 1,719 to go.
All about the Money
Using calculations originally supplied to us by KPMG and subsequently verified by business feedback we believe one million online planning applications has saved businesses and local authorities in the region of £285m – around £80m in this year alone.
Total savings delivered by the Portal between 2003- 2012 are around £450m set against a cost of less than £50m over the same period. Today every £1 invested in the Portal returns £24 in benefits to the UK economy.
I’m sure we can all imagine ways of spending that £285M saving. I for one would like to have spent some of it on improving my golf with a few lessons from Luke Donald (I dont think my wife would trust me to socialise with Tiger!).
I might also have spent a few bob getting Bradford City back in the Premiership.
But instead, being the generous folks that we are at the Portal we’ve shared that benefit around. I hope you feel we’ve helped and that your LPA or business has received some of that benefit. If not let us know and we’ll do our best to help.
If you have benefitted please let us know by commenting below.
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