Now that the blog is well established our communications team have decided to jump on the bandwagon and use this channel to provide regular updates on all things Portal.
The aim of these updates are to let you know what the team is currently working on and to give you the opportunity to make your views heard.
The updates will provide up to the minute progress reports from teams and groups working within the portal on different projects and include information on events, technical enhancements and fixes.
We are working on a new theme for the blog to seperate the “news” from the “views” but until then you’ll need to read it all or risk missing the golden nuggests.
If you have any questions please post your comments under an update and the relevant team will receive your feedback
Thanks Chris and the Planning Portal team
Just a short post to clarify the position on e-Consultation connectors.
As Ocella have now proven the e-Consultation connector schema provided by the Portal to LPA ICT providers is perfectly workable, disproving any statements currently being made to the contrary.
I urge any LPAs who are considering connecting to the hub to contact me or your Portal account manager for assistance.
We at the Portal are doing our utmost to work with everyone involved in the planning system to support improvements for all. We know how tough it is at the moment both for LPAs working with limited and decreasing resources and for businesses seeking the most efficient ways of working.
I am always happy to engage in discussion and I’m happy to be told I’m wrong, but too much hard work has gone into this project for it to be mis-represented.
Chris
South Oxfordshire District Council has become the first LPA to go live with an integrated implementation of the e-Consultation Hub.
The integration was facilitated by Ocella, the first LPA IT provider to get a connector to market.
I’ll report back on progress but expect to see great news on efficiencies.
Chris
We’ve been busy beavering away on all fronts just lately including new forms to extend the time limit for existing planning permissions and non-material amendments.
Unfortunately, neither are available as fully interactive forms yet, but we’re working on it. In this case the policy is moving faster than the technology – who’d have thought it?
Chris
Just a quick note to welcome folks at the IPC to the planning space, not least because our team pulled together the website for them in quick time.
We’ll be working with the IPC to develop a fully featured site over the coming months.
Chris
Those of you in the know will remember that the standards were designed to underpin improvements in planning application processing by standardising elements of application information.
However, that was a while back and time moves on.
As a result we intend to facilitate a review of the standards with a view to finding out “Who is using them/How are they currently being used/If they are effective/Should they be updated and if so how?”
We plan to do this by:
1. Recruiting a review panel to agree a question set for an online survey (e.g LPAs or POS, PAS, Planning Aid, RTPI, CLG, Stat Cons)
2. Run online survey and concurrent discussion
3. Consult on review panel views of the findings
4. Publish and promote the findings as recommended standards
Chris
Hello All,
back from hols and straight into the fray.
I met today with representatives of the outdoor advertisers including a Planning Manager from one of the major advertisers and the Chief Executive of the Outdoor Advertising Association.
They were concerned about the Unauthorised Advetising and Fly-posting database hosted by the Portal.
I was able to allay their fears and had a good conversation with them about all matters advertising/planning related.
They are as keen as we all are to rid ourselves of unauthorised advertisers and fly-posters as they believe they cast their industry in a bad light which in turn reflects on them. (They also lose revenue to them.)
Following the conversation I proposed 2 actions to our database members (enforcement officers in the main).
1. We allow verified representatives of individual advertisers to request details of convictions against their company held on the database for the purpose of corroboration. I think this is only fair and would reassure advertisers that the database is accurate.
2. That we create a specific discussion group in advertisers can talk to planners as a group about general issues and developments in their industry that may have a planning facet i.e the development of outdoor digital advertisements. In this way they can seek the opinion of planners as a group enabling both parties to discuss issues and opportunities at the outset rather than when they become a problem.
This would not be used to discuss individual applications but wider developments or common issues.
It strikes me that other sectors may benefit from a similar approach.
Let me know what you think.
Chris
P.S If you work in local authority enforcement and are not using the database and its discussion forum sign up now.
There were 560,780 visits to the Planning Portal in July – up 2.5% on the previous month, and up 17.8% compared to July 2008.
At the same time there were 294,404 unique visitors – up 2.2% on the previous month, and up 26.7% compared to July 2008.
These visitors accounted for 6,459,624 page views – up 2.7% on the previous month. Of these 47% came from the General Public, 45% from Professional and 8% from Government users.
The Building Regulations portion of the website accounted for 19% of Visits.
The Interactive Houses generated 48,749 views , 18% of which were to the Terrace House.
There were 96,880 visits to the “My Applications” page on the Portal and a new record high of 15,828 planning applications were submitted online via the site.
We’ve crunched and re-crunched the numbers and it’s true! – the Portal has saved builders, inspectors, architectural technologists, joe blogs and all a lot (and I mean a lot) of money on Building Regs.
In 2008 alone there were 1,209,696 downoads of the regs and various supporting documents. Saving £14,372,224 (not including a further £3.6 Million in p&p).
There have already been 687,934 downloads this year saving a further £10 Million.
Not in efficiencies or intangibles but your real, hard cash.
Wow!
As a strand of Killian Pretty we are researching the many and varied ways this question is currently being addressed paricularly in an automated manner.
From the former ‘Parsol Expert system’ overseen by PAS, to semi-automated systems provided by some I.T suppliers and all stops inbetween.
One view is that the question is too complex and multi-faceted to ever get a definitive answer from an automated system without enormous expense, another is that 80% certain is probably close enough in most small scale projects.
I’d be glad to hear your views on how you think the question could be best answered for citizens, bearing in mind many LPA’s are now refusing to give informal advice without an LDC or similar.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Chris
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