So just after saying the new site was stabilising, what does it do but prove me wrong.
Yep the site is currently down but this time it’s due to a widespread network problem that IBM are experiencing rather than anything specific to the Planning Portal.
Nevertheless I am really sorry for any trouble this has caused you and rest assured that we are working as quickly as possible to get it back up and running.
Chris
So the new site is live and stabilising – so what next? I hear you ask.
Well we are still a little bit in limbo until the CSR settlements descend however we are not letting the grass grow under our feet.
Like everyone else we have had to adjust to the harsh new economic realities and this has meant some re-structuring and loss of some good friends in our team.
We have downsized our project work – most notably by winding down the e-Consultation project, and we’ll be relying on you good folks to deliver the innovation in services still needed to embed e-planning. We’ve created the opportunity with PortalApps and we’ll be unveiling the first services soon.
Stuart Mockford continues to lead our Corporate Account Team who are still plugging away with planning agents, developers, architects and anyone else still submitting planning applications on paper and Scott Alford is leading on working with LPAs. Both would be very happy to hear from you if we can help in any way.
We are continuing to look at the 1App suite and in particular investigating what quick wins are open to us (more soon).
I hope to be able to publish our Business Plan soon however it is safe to say that our focus will continue to be on driving up the number of online planning applications and on reducing our reliance on public funds. On that note we have some great new advertising and sponsorship opportunities Guy Funnell would be glad to tell you all about them.
Finally, thanks for bearing with us through what has been a difficult period.
Chris
If you’ve visited the Planning Portal this morning you may have noticed a few things have changed.
Last week I wrote about how excited I was about the launch of the new-look Planning Portal and what benefits we think it will deliver to us and to you.
It wasn’t always an easy road to travel but now it’s here the hard work all seems worthwhile and will become more evident as our private sector partners begin to develop their app’s to sit alongside our content.
As with all projects the success of our endeavours rely heavily on how we collaborate with our partners. This post is a short note of thanks to them.
The project started with our users. We worked with user experience experts CX Partners to help shape how the service should work.
We talked to dozens of members of the public, planning professionals and other end users to tell us how the information should be arranged and labelled.
With CX’s help we tested our assumptions with end users, refined the content and tested again. And again.
The look-and-feel elements were developed by Sheffield-based design and web application developers Technophobia.
From the very first concept to the final polished design, Technophobia worked with us, CX and the system integrators to make sure the site was functional and in line with our brand.
Buffalo Design, the company we work with to build the interactive house and the mini-guides, helped with some essential updates to make sure the guides fitted correctly in our new page templates.
Although we largely excluded the online application service from the project (more on that project here), our forms needed some essential tweaking to work with the new design. As ever Apto Solutions were on hand to do the tweaking.
Finally, the site was built on IBM infrastructure using IBM software and some of its very talented developers and solution architects. I hope they can now get some sleep. Thanks to all involved at Hursley and Portsmouth.
I hope you enjoy using the new look Planning Portal and realise the benefits from the improvements we’ve made.
As with all new services, we’ll find little problems – if you find any let me know by adding a comment below.
So thanks, to the partners who helped us deliver our vision and the users who told us what they wanted from the Planning Portal and how it should be delivered.
Hi,
I’ve been asked if there will be a problem with broken links following our redesign. The answer is, hopefully not – but it depends on how you are linking to us.
If you are using the discrete links we recommend in the LPA Links pack then there should be no problem.
Discrete links like “www.planningportal.gov.uk/apply” have been reallocated to the revised pages. There are around 50-60 of these, which we checked very recently.
However, if you have ‘deep’ links to our pages several levels down in the navigation they will inevitably break. There’s not much we can do about this is as the information architecture is fundamentally different and matching every instance across every Local Authority would be an impossible task for us to resource.
To mitigate the inconvenience, we are using a custom Error 404 page (in non-techie speak – ‘we can’t find the page you’re looking for’ here are some suggestions).
This will provide a ‘friendly’ apology for the broken link and highlights the new site map at the bottom of the page showing the top two levels of content.
It also gives you a search box within the context of the error message to help you find what you were after.
I am very excited to announce that we are on the cusp of delivering the second part of our long-awaited site upgrade.
This release will allow you to customise the Portal homepage to suit your own needs and better define the content and services you use on a regular basis.
This does mean that the Planning Portal will be unavailable from 8pm, Friday 29th October until a similar time in the evening of Sunday 31st October.
In addition, when you next access the site you will need to reconfirm your registration details, however this process shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes and we hope you’ll agree the improvements will be worth it.
Why are we doing it?
In short, to provide a better service at a cheaper cost. By making the site more relevant we hope to increase take-up and at a time of constrained marketing and communications budgets this redesign makes it easier for us to communicate with our users by sector.
Since going live in May 2002 the Planning Portal has had just one site redesign and remained on the same technical platform, despite significant changes to the content and audience and advances in web technology.
In this time the Planning Portal has seen use of its service grow to help over 330,000 unique users and deliver around 20,000 planning applications every month.
The new technical platform for the Planning Portal significantly cuts the cost of maintaining the site, as well as increasing the opportunities for revenue that the Portal can generate, reducing the burden on the public purse.
Over the coming weeks and months we will be adding new content and services from the private sector via our PortalApps service opening up the site to anyone who has a quality product or service relevant to our industry.
For more information visit the PortalApps area of the website.
Regular readers of this blog will know we have already begun work on the third and final part of our upgrade, which will aim to improve the online application forms (1App) delivering more efficiency benefits to all online applicants.
So as with all significant technical changes it’ll be a nervous weekend – wish us luck and see you on the other side of the weekend.
We have prepared a short video to give you a taste of what your new Portal will look like.
Note: This article was first published in October 2010. I linked to it again in December 2012 following some posts about the 5MB attachment limit. Although many find this limit a pain it clearly wasn’t an issue with this application. Advice on working with the 5MB limit here.
You may have read that the planning application for the Liverpool Waters project, believed to be the UK’s largest-ever individual application, was lodged recently by WYG on behalf of Peel Land & Property.
You may not be aware that it was submitted via the Planning Portal.
There is still a common misconception that the Portal is only suitable for small applications and that there is a 25MB limit on attachments. This is not true. Read more…
LPAs regularly tell us that incorrect plans are a common cause of invalid planning applications.
We are helping address this by asking all Local Authorities who don’t offer plans themselves or don’t have a preferred supplier to direct their customers to the Planning Portal’s ‘Buy a Plan’ service.
The service includes guidance on what plans need to be submitted and offers links to the Portal’s accredited suppliers, each of whose mapping services have been evaluated and approved.
Using these suppliers will ensure applications are not invalidated because of incorrect plans.
LPAs
Linking to the service couldn’t be easier! There’s a button (just click it and copy)
together with a link www.planningportal.gov.uk/buyamap that can simply be added to your planning homepage along with the example explanatory text (in italics below).
Every planning application needs a site location plan and block plan showing the location and boundaries of the site you are planning to work on. You can use the Planning Portal’s ‘Buy a Plan’ service to ensure that you meet our requirements, whether you are a planning professional or first-time applicant.
Click here to “Buy a Plan”
Please contact Beccy Greenfield for any assistance.
Agents and Citizens
To ensure your site plans meet the requirements simply visit the Portal mapping page.
I have written today to our partners in the e-Consultation Hub project to inform them that the project will close at the end of December 2010.
Like everyone else we are making choices about what we can and should be doing with our resources. We’ve decided that we must focus on supporting and improving the online planning application service (1App) and we simply can’t afford to do both.
I am certain that you will understand the rationale for this decision.
We will be working with our LPA and Consultee partners to minimise disruption and ensure no consultations go astray during the close-down.
I would like to publicly thank each of our partners for their commitment and contribution.
The Portal’s interactive house is one of the most recognisable parts of the site. It was originally designed for use by members of the public who wanted to understand how planning rules work and it has been extremely succesful. Later in the post I recount the history of the house but before doing so I’d like to make you aware of it’s latest exciting incarnation.
House for Sale – no mortgage required
We’ve now moved the house on by stripping it of all content and adding a very simple content management system that will enable anyone (really anyone!) to add whatever content they like, not necessarily planning but anything house or home related.
We’ve already built a Crime Prevention version to demonstrate its potential for non-planning content but the permutations are endless, from providing info to tenants on various scenarios around the home to a sales tool for doors and windows – you decide.
We’ve made it incredibly easy to customise, add new features and content and publish it to the web.
If you’d like to get your foot on the cyber ladder please contact our commercial team
to talk about the costs or access to our demonstrator.
The History of the House Read more…
As previously discussed in my post dated August 25th, we’ve been looking at ways to help you report on the green benefits of online submission.
Well our Carbon Calculator is now live, looking good and ready for you to use.
This is a really useful tool designed specifically for planning to help you measure the benefits of electronic submission and to communicate your environmental commitment to your prospective clients and other stakeholders.
Alongside this we have now launched our Green pledge and Green logo. Lots of companies have already been in touch to tell us they already submit all their planning applications online and we are sending them out pledges to sign and display to let everyone know their commitment to greener working. As part of this process we send them a Green logo to display on their website and marketing material and we’re promoting these enlightened companies on the Portal too.
We have also spoken to companies who want to submit more applications online but need support from us to do so, something we are more than happy to provide in any way we are able to.
If you are currently submitting all your applications online or would like to learn what training and support we have to help you do so please contact our own green goddess Christabel. Read more…
Planning Portal Blog 