A day in the life of a Planner
Planning Agents Forum
Hear from Peter Higginbottom, Director of Planning Insight, about the day he spent at the London Borough of Redbridge for the Planning Agents Forum held in July 2019.
The forum has been set up by Head of Planning and Building Control, Brett Leahy, to provide an opportunity for agents to give feedback on the service but also for him to update on plans for the planning service together with some context and reasons behind changes.
“It was very interesting to share feedback with other agents in the room about the quality and speed of the service. Many felt LBR is not performing well enough and this was acknowledged by Brett.
Some context was provided about budgetary constraints together with caseload levels of officers.
Brett indicated that due to backlog some officers have over 160 planning applications which is unsustainable.
In order to address the issues, they have changed their validation requirements to speed matters up and will no longer negotiate on applications unless pre-app has been undertaken.
Brett has agreed to introduce software called AgileDatum to automate upwards of 80% of admin tasks through AI Chatbots and Data Visualisation.
Better guidance was also promised in the form of policy documents while there is a commitment to improve the quality and speed of the pre-app service.
We do a lot of work in LBR and so are keen to develop a positive relationship with them.”
Peter Higginbottom,
Director at Planning Insight
Planning Insight will be interviewing Brett Leahy later this month to discuss the future and digitisation of planning.
This thrilling news will be shared with TrustedLand and posted on our Advice and News page so keep watching this space.
Would you like to find out more from Planning Insight?
Reach out to them through the instant messaging feature on their TrustedLand profile HERE or email team@trustedland.co.uk
