The Reducing Invalid Planning Applications project came into being
following a group of like-minded authorities individually recognizing
they had a problem with invalid planning applications. We discovered
on average the rate of invalid applications was 50% of all
applications received with some going around the system up to eight or
nine times. The cost and time in resourcing this issue and frustration
caused for both sides – applicant and council – is understandably significant.
The current system is confusing and difficult for applicants to
navigate. It requires applicants to reference multiple websites and
guidance in their attempts to submit a valid application.
So, in the summer of 2019, five councils came together and formed one
partnership to bid for MHCLG digital innovation funding. The main
premise of the bid was to develop an online tool which would help
applicants navigate the planning system more easily and give them a
greater chance of submitting a planning application that would be
successfully made valid on submission.
Working collaboratively, with our developers (Open Systems Lab) we
have been working through an Alpha project, now into Beta, to develop
a solution that will help applicants navigate what is a confusing and
quite opaque system.
We’re focusing on Householders with a view to in future scaling up to
other types of applications; and eventually – all application types!
In Alpha there were five partner councils and in Beta we’ve grown to
six cover partners:
Lambeth (leading)
Buckinghamshire Council
Camden
Lewisham
Southwark
Northumberland
We will be running engagement workshops in the coming months and were
hoping you would be interested in attending!
The engagement workshops will be run by members of the core partner
team and will aim to introduce and help other councils understand what
issues they have with validation – establish if they too have a high
invalid rate and whether the digital service we’re developing and
designing could be the solution for them.
Lambeth’s project page for this can be found here: https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/better-fairer-lambeth/project/reducing-invalid-planning-applications-a-service-pattern-for-digital
And the partner website (to find out more) can be found here www.ripa.digital
