We’re within touching distance of 80 per cent online applications

2013 was another bumper year for the Portal with the standout figure being that it looks like we are nudging close to 80 per cent of all planning applications being submitted online.

That’s our target for March next year!

We’re waiting for the LPA figures from Government to validate this but our upper range estimate looks like we might have handled as many as 79.5% of applications online over the three months October-December 2013.

And our data for February 2014 shows the most applications submitted online ever in one month – despite it having only 20 working days. If this trend continues it looks like we have every chance of hitting the 80 per cent threshold by the end of the financial year.

The good news doesn’t stop there. 2013 saw increases across the board for the Portal, a 27 per cent increase in website visits, a 16 per cent increase in applications and a 22 per cent increase in Building Regulations documents downloads.

The value of applications (the associated fees) submitted via the Portal rose from £112,839,181 in 2012 to £169,476,151 in 2013, an increase of 50 per cent.

Hopefully this reflects better times in the market as well as for the Portal. We’d be interested to hear whether February felt like a big month for business.