Our annual service charge increase will this year take into account some stark increases in the charges levied by the credit and debit card providers which have been widely publicised in the mainstream media. Therefore, from 1 April 2022, the service charge for our national payment service (also known as FTS) will be £26.83 + VAT. This charge not only covers the costs of providing the payment service, but also contributes to the continued investment into our service, delivering ongoing improvements that will add additional efficiencies for agents, applicants and Local Authorities.
At the end of January, we launched the new Planning Portal website, putting in place the foundations to deliver our vision to transform digital planning and building services.
Developed in-house by our TerraQuest colleagues, it’s been built in a modular style that allows us to work in a more agile way, be more responsive to customer needs, policy change and implement continuous improvements. This is the first step of an ongoing process that will see regular development of each component part of making an application that’s transferable to join-up other services, such as better integrating online building control applications and delivering a single sign-on to link these key processes that’s coming later in 2022.
We shall also be exploring the requirements for a national standard pre-application service and following the DLUHC pathfinders on digital local plans, as we look to unlock the value of spatial data to improve the quality of application submissions and help to reduce invalidation levels.
Firstly, we need to embed the new service that shows the investment made to achieve our ambitious plans.
If you would like to understand the new developments and functionality in greater detail, we would strongly recommend you join us for our free webinar series ‘The digital future of planning and building’. Alongside providing you with an in-depth review of our development programme it provides you the opportunity to ask questions. You can register on our new Community Hub.
The Planning Portal Spring Conference is also back after a fantastic response to our virtually hosted November Conference. The four-day CPD accredited conference will be covering the key issues affecting planning and building, with presentations and panel discussions from an array of industry-leading panellists and speakers. Talking about Urban Regeneration, The Building Safety Programme, Beyond Net Zero and the Future of Planning – Local Plans/Pathfinder Programme. Early bird tickets for a full conference pass are available at only £90 until the end of March and its free for public sector delegates. You can register on our conference website.
We are committed to providing an efficient service to all customers and delivery partners and thank you for your continued support and feedback.
If you have any questions or comments in relation to any of the above, please email communications@planningportal.co.uk.
Funding allocated for brownfield regeneration
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has allocated a share of £30 million to three regions for the regeneration of brownfield sites.
The Planner, Laura Edgar
If you missed Monday’s webinar, want to watch it again, or would like to share with your colleagues, you can access the video in the button below.
Five weeks have passed since we went live with the new system. In the latest episode, Sarah Chilcott and Scott Alford gave an overview of the changes and our planned developments and answered your questions.
Scott mentioned in the webinar how important it is for us to have the up to date contact information for Local Authorities and our users. If you have an account on the Planning Portal, please log in and ensure your information is up to date. If you are a Local Authority, please click the link to complete the short form.
Update your Local Authority contacts
There is less than a week left to purchase your Super Early Bird ticket for Planning Portal’s Spring Conference, 25 – 28 April 2022 with 12+ hours of CPD presentations, panels and breakout sessions!
A legal right to nature should be part of levelling-up agenda, say campaigners
The government should set legal duties in levelling-up legislation so that developers and public bodies provide equal access to nature-rich green and blue spaces for everyone.
The Planner, Laura Edgar
Following the launch of our new planning application services, we will be hosting our next webinar to provide you with an update on the latest changes at Planning Portal on Monday 28 February at 12pm.
We appreciate that a small number of users have faced issues over the past few weeks, which our teams are working hard to rectify, but there have also been some great success stories.
Monday’s webinar will provide you with information surrounding the current fixes we have implemented since ‘Go-live’, along with an outline of future updates planned to ensure we provide the highest quality service.
For more information about the webinar, click here.
If you missed the latest episode of our webinar series, you can catch up here or if you need any assistance, please email community@planningportal.co.uk.
This month’s report looks at the fluctuations in application numbers of individual authorities, as well as applications by type and variance in planning application fees.
- 48,625 applications were submitted in England and Wales throughout January 2022.
- This is a 10% reduction in comparison to the figures seen in January 2021.
January 2022 saw a total of 16,522 Householder and related applications submitted.
Also included:
This month’s issue also includes analysis on the regional breakdown of application submissions, a national overview from the last six years and an in-depth dive into applications by type and application fees.
Government to block planning permission if developers don’t protect leaseholders
Communities secretary Michael Gove has set out ‘tough’ measures enabling the government to block planning permission and building control sign-off on developments if professionals in the industry are not doing the right thing.
Laura Edgar, The Planner
WMCA outlines £879m budget for 2022/23
The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has outlined its budget of £879.2 million for this year, which includes cash for infrastructure, land regeneration and climate change.
Prithvi Pandya, The Planner
£8.1bn green budget backed by Senedd Cymru
Senedd Cymru members this week voted to approve a draft budget that commits it to £8.1 billion of spending on green infrastructure over the next three years.
Roger Milne, The Planner
The Independent Digital Task Force for Planning has published its report, A Digital Future for Planning: Spatial Planning Reimagined. The report provides a blueprint for digitally enabled spatial planning, which in turn presents powerful leverage to deliver zero-carbon, environmental net gain, levelling up, and other ambitious social and economic goals.
Read more…The Planning Portal is delighted to be hosting their fourth conference virtually on 25 – 28 April 2022. The Spring Conference will cover the pertinent issues affecting planning and building, both now and into the future.
Super Early Bird tickets are available now until the end of February, for just £75.
Read more…
Planning Portal Blog 