Despite all the doom and gloom records were broken once again;
There were 21,923 Online Applications sent via the Portal.
Our highest number ever! and an increase of 40.1% from July 2009.
Total Visits – 631,914 up 12.7% from July 2009
Unique Visitors – 329,548 up 11.7% from July 2009
Total Page Views – 8,203,987 up 27.0% from July 2009
and
Average Pages Viewed per Day – 264,349 a 27.2% increase from July 2009.
Is business picking up generally?
what do you think
Chris
Earlier this month, we decided to withdraw our mapping service from the Planning Portal.
You can read more about this decision in my 9 July post.
We are now planning to close the service in August 2010. While this decision means we will be withdrawing our own Buy-a-map service you will still be able to buy a map from one of our accredited partners, in fact we urge you to do so.
All our suppliers will continue to provide OS licensed maps of a high quality that meet your requirements and ease the processing of applications.
Maps can be bought through the online application service as normal, or from our Buy-a-map page.
If you previously bought a map from the Portal, this change means you will no longer be able to access your purchased maps from your site plan account.
However, if you used the map to support an online planning application, the map will still be linked to the application.
To access your map, simply identify the application and it will be available in the supporting documents section.
If you have any queries regarding these changes, please contact Portal Support.
I thought I’d lift the following written by one of our Account Managers Robin, in response to a recently posted comment regarding the process for paying Planning Application Fees to LPAs via the Portal.
Planning Authorities currently have the option to offer three payment options for planning applications that are submitted online via the Planning Portal; Read more…
You may have seen CLGs recent comms regarding the national plannning apllication stats for Jan – March 2010.
There were 120,360 planning applications recorded in LPAs PS1 returns.
During the same period there were 51,267 online applications made via the Portal.
This equates to 42.6% of all applications made; by contrast in the same period 1 year ago the percentage was just 30.4% (33,554)
Therefore in the past year online planning application submission has increased by 50%
In June there were 21,126 applications made through the Portal which equates to a 58.9% increase from June 2009 (13,291)
‘Web Convergence’ is one of our key projects for the year – but what is it?
In a nutshell, it is the project to ‘converge’ the Portal’s citizen-facing planning and building regulations content with Directgov, and business-related content with Businesslink (BL), by March 2011.
In the past convergence has been a scary thing – we always thought it meant shutting down parts or even all the Portal.
However, in the last year the scope of convergence has changed significantly and is now an opportunity for us to increase the reach of Portal content with members of the public.
Our first proposal for Directgov last October was a virtual version of the Portal but with the familiar Directgov orange branding.
However, more recently Directgov agreed to adopt a much simpler convergence solution, which will see the project using the interactive house as the gateway for citizen content on Directgov.
The aim is that citizens will access high-level planning information via Directgov and link back to the Portal for the detailed content and transactions.
To be absolutely clear: we won’t be removing any content from the Portal in fact we will be adding content from The Planning Inspectorate; who are meeting their convergence obligation by migrating their non-corporate content to us.
This ‘light touch’ approach will cost less, a key consideration in this climate, and most of the work will be able to be completed in-house at Directgov and here.
Meanwhile, Portal content will be enhanced on the Businesslink site. The publishing company Sweet & Maxwell will rewrite business-related guides for publishing on the Businesslink site, which the Portal reviews.
Following careful review we have decided to withdraw our interactive development plans and Local Development Framework (LDF) databases when we move to a redesigned website later this year.
Our original concept and objective was to host each LPA’s development plan on the Portal. However, the changing policy landscape has made it increasingly challenging to keep the information up to date and present a complete picture of an LPA’s local policy framework.
When the initial service was implemented, many LPAs published their plans on the Portal as it made sense from a technological and financial point of view – the Portal being a hub to host interactive development plans, reducing costs for each LPA to have done it themselves.
However, more recently many of the plans have become out of date, superseded by LDF documents. Some LPAs have also chosen to host plans on their own websites as mapping technology and publishing tools have become more readily available and cost effective. Read more…
As I’ve previously mentioned now that our redesign is almost upon us we are turning our attention to weightier matters. We’re cutting back on non-essential work and re-using the savings to focus on improving 1App.
We are currently setting up the project, working out how much we can afford and how to ensure we deliver the most effective results.
We will be opening up lots of ways to get involved in shaping the future of the 1App system, but to get us started I’ve listed here are some of the improvements that you’ve already told us you’d like to see. Read more…
This week the Portal will be launching a redesigned weekly newsletter which will continue to deliver all the latest planning news but will ensure you don’t miss out on any new developments at the Portal.
The new HTML newsletter
But don’t worry. We’re not straying away from the straight-talking content that has seen more than 60,000 users join the service in recent years – making the newsletter the trusted source of information for local authorities and planning professionals.
We’ve listened to your feedback and will continue to bring you the latest policy announcements and planning news in an objective and balanced way. Read more…
We at the Portal in common with all our Public Sector colleagues are looking hard at our costs to make sure we’re delivering efficiently. We have already reduced our budget for 2010/11 by £1M, to around £5M, without reducing our take-up targets, and we’re hoping to make more of a contribution still.
I thought you might like to see some of the changes we’ve implemented to achieve the saving so far.
First off we’ve reduced our hosting and service management costs significantly and cancelled all projects other than 1App improvements, eConsultation and Portal 2 (now in test so already paid for).
All temps, consultants and contractors contracts have been wound-up and their work re-distributed to the permanent team or cancelled.
We’ve cut back on our personal I.T kit and are using video conferencing and Skype more widely. We’re making more use of e-learning tools and localising more of our training activities.
We’ve a moratorium on recruitment and are managing events such as maternity leave by sharing the work around and we’ve dramatically cut our Marketing and Communications budget. Read more…
Planning Portal Blog 
