We may not know who will be sitting where in Parliament, and we may not know who will be King or Queen of the jungle, but there’s one thing we can be sure of - next year will be tough.
I’m fairly sure most of you will agree that there will be a lot to achieve and less money to do it with. I’m equally sure that we will not be immune.
Fortunately, through incredibly insightful management! we’ve already reduced our I.T costs and become greener with it. However, if we are to continue delivering to the level we’ve become accustomed, we expect we’ll need to top up the kitty.
At the moment, we raise funds in two ways: firstly, by delivering services for other bits of Government - good work but not a lot of profit in it! Secondly, we sell site location maps to planning applicants. This provides useful revenue either directly or by commissions from other suppliers with every penny going back into service development, however, we’d like more.
We have some ideas, but before sharing them with the world, I thought I’d ask you dear readers for your views.
The question is a simple one: what do you think the Portal could and should do to generate revenue?
If we get some good ideas, I’ll pop them in a poll and let you vote on them.
Over to you.
Chris
I thought you might be interested in an unusual snippet from users of our Illegal ads database and discussion forum.
This follows on from an earlier discussion about whether a searchlight projecting an advertisement onto clouds Batman style, constituted a breach of planning. It did – it’s a signpost.
The latest cunning idea saw adverts for a new store applied to paving stones in a town centre by using a stencil and then jet washing the pavement to display a clean logo.
Who said creativity was dead?
Let us know if you have any other similar experiences.
You may be aware that most Government websites are required to shift citizen-facing content to Directgov by March 2011. The idea being to make it easier for citizens to find Government content and to reduce the mountain of .Gov websites cluttering up the web.
Up ’til now we’ve struggled to understand how we might meet this obligation while retaining our ability to continue to drive reform of the planning system. This has caused no little tension.
That was then… Read more »
The latest in our ongoing series of mini-guides has just been added to the site.
This guide illustrates the basics of permitted development for extensions and complements the guides for porches and loft conversions as well as the Interactive House and Terrace.
The common approach for all of these guides is to attempt to present permitted development to the lay-person in a simple yet effective manner.
We are delighted when LPAs and others choose to link to the guides and we update them as legislation changes.
We’d be delighted to hear how we might improve any of these guides or receive feedback of any kind.
Chris
Today the Portal is pleased to announce the launch of the visual guide to loft conversions. It has nine slides to reflect the increased number of limits and conditions compared to porches. You can see the final version of the new product here.
Key Features
Graphical representation of common projects affected by new PD rules
Text and visuals showing limits and proximities
Clear summary checklist at the end
Printable PDF summary documents for users and LPAs
Watch this space for further new visual guides from the Planning Portal content team.
MasterMap Update At the start of October, we updated the 1:1250 map data, which contains buildings, roads, water, etc, to the current version.
PDF Fees Summary
Responding to LPA requests we have also recently delivered the PDF fees summary - a document that sets out how applicants calculated their application fee.
And finally, If you’d like to keep an eye on our performance, you’ll need to read our Service Report (below).
Service Report The Service Report, which is published on the Planning Portal, contains monthly, quarterly and annual statistics and information on performance and customer satisfaction. Read more »
The Portal has been working with the IPC to ensure it realised a web presence from 1 October which is up and running well. The website is an interim solution for the IPC which contains information on who they are, what they do and how to contact them. It also provides the IPC with a newsletter subscription process and access to post news items. This will be in place until March 2010 at which point it will have been redesigned to include greater functionality.
The IPC held its launch event in London on Thursday 22 October in front of more than 100 stakeholders including NGOs, local authorities and promoters. John Healey MP, the minister for housing and planning, gave the key note speech backing the IPC.
The Planning Portal organised a live video link event so that the IPC staff in Bristol were able to be a part of the event. Read more »
I’ve added a feed to the left hand column that will aggregate content updates from the CLG site.
The feed includes articles from the “consultation”, “articles” and “what’s new” feeds.
Let me know if it’s useful.
Chris
On Thursday 1st October, CLG introduced two new application forms:
Application for a new planning permission to replace an extant planning permission, in order to extend the time limit for implementation. Application for replacement of associated listed building and/or conservation area consents in order to extend the time limit for implementation. Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990.
Application for a non-material amendment following a grant of planning permission. Town and Country Planning Act 1990
