22 April 2003

Public Access for Planning

Huntingdonshire District Council's Planning Public Access service is the local authority's latest step in using solutions based on spatial information for electronic service delivery. This internet browser-based applications makes the council's planning records publicly available via the council's website and facilitates the process by which citizens can register, investigate and track planning applications.

As an integral part of the Huntingdonshire planning website, Planning Public Access also ensures that users, for example, members of the public, councillors, Parish Councils and developers, have access to the most up-to-date information available. It is possible to search on specific properties or locations, view plans, track planning applications and submit comments and objections on the applications via the internet.

Planning information can be searched for using the planning application case number or by property address held within the corporate Local Land & Property Gazetteer (LLPG). The information available on each application includes the applicant's name and address, date of receipt, the type and status of the application, as well as all accompanying documents such as the application form, plans and drawings of the proposal. Users can also view the digitised boundary of the planning application on an online map, through integration with the Council's ESRI (UK) based corporate Geographic Information System (GIS).

Users can view digitised boundaries

Planning Public Access integrates with the Council's Development Control application and its land and property database in order to provide the services online. All of these systems are provided by sister companies ESRI (UK) and CAPS Solutions.

Huntingdonshire is committed to transforming customer services through eGovernment. Underpinning this are three goals: delivering improvements to customer service using electronic service delivery wherever appropriate; the adoption of corporate, rather than departmental software solutions for key land and property referencing, analysis, and information management and; corporate ownership and sharing of council wide data sets wherever possible.

As part of its drive for electronic service delivery, an early decision was made to introduce a single, corporate Geographic Information System (GIS) to hold all the council's spatially referenced information. This would, in time, consolidate such data held within three separate departmental GIS that were in use across the organisation.

Huntingdonshire selected ESRI's ArcGIS technology with its family of integrated products as the most appropriate to deliver corporate spatial data management, analysis and reporting.

James Thompson of the Council's eGovernment programme team explains, "In ESRI's ArcGIS family we found all the components to provide the central server, internet, departmental, desktop, and field based facilities we were seeking. ArcGIS' adherence to IT standards also enabled us to avoid specific vendor technologies. These were the key factors in our selection of ESRI technology. We also upgraded our existing UNI-form business tools from CAPS Solutions to version 7 Spatial as these are tightly integrated with ArcGIS and implemented the UNI-form Gazetteer Management System as our corporate gazetteer. This business system and its integration with GIS has enabled us to standardise on OS Mastermap for background mapping. These CAPS modules and ArcGIS have provided us with a sound footing on which to build the e-government initiatives we are adopting".

About Location 2003

Location 2003 is a series of two-day regional events showcasing the leading land, property and Geographical Information Systems applications for business and government.

At these events both non-technical and technical public sector professionals can learn from colleagues with experience of these systems and review the best of breed solutions for applications in all areas of eGovernment, plus land, property and address management.

Venues:
LEEDS  Royal Armourie, 29-30 April
EDINBURGH  Iinternational Conference Centre, 7-8 May
LONDON  Business Design Centre, 13-14 May
TELFORD  International Centre, 20-21 May

For more information visit www.location2003.com or call the Location 2003 team on 01296 745616.