Kudos for Mayo County Council's online planning services
The move towards online planning applications is urgently required to ease the administrative burden for local authorities and to create a more user-friendly experience for applicants, a new report published by the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) has said.
The report also emphasises how Covid-19 restrictions have placed greater emphasis on the need to provide the public with adequate remote access to planning services.
Furthermore, the report finds that while local authorities generally provide good access to planning application documentation on their websites, there is a need for more consistency in terms how documents are displayed and accessed.
The report identifies Mayo County Council as a local authority which has implemented good practice in terms of the accessibility and navigability of planning application documentation
Specifically, the report compliments the council for the user-friendly way it categorises files documentation at different stages of the planning application process, from the submission of the planning application to post-decision of the local authority therefore making search options more user-friendly.
The report cites how the authority files are categorised across the different stages of the planning process.
The documentation is dated, filed alphabetically and clearly labelled within the subcategories.
This practice makes public engagement very accessible, user-friendly and generally offers a good alternative to a hard copy version of the planning application
The analysis included the way in which documents were structured and their legibility from a sample of planning applications across the 31 local authorities.
The purpose of the report is to provide a snapshot of the current operation of online services as well as highlighting good practice examples in order to promote learning across the local government sector.
Planning Regulator, Niall Cussen said; "Mayo County Council have recognised the value of making online planning information accessible and user-friendly.
"This means that planning material is more relatable, easier to comprehend and that the council is offering a generally better service to the public.
"The planning process has become significantly more sophisticated and complex in recent years, particularly in the implementation of European Directives, which has led to an increased volume of documentation to be submitted with planning applications.
"This has increased the administrative burden on local authorities to ensure that all documentation is easily accessible, legible and published in a user-friendly manner on their websites.
"Ease in accessing documentation online is critical to customer confidence in the planning process and especially the public’s role in it.
"There is strong customer demand for quality access to web-based planning services to augment and extend the reach of traditional ’counter’ services.
"This demand has been accentuated as a result of Covid-19 restrictions. The enhancement of such services is also in line with the digital transformation agenda to which government is committed.”