Forum Topic

Council Online Planning Application Service Crashes

The Council provides an online weekly Planning Application listing service. You can find new Planning Applications and click onto them to get details of the applications.Well you could up until last Saturday. Since then the service has been down - now for four days.We are all unable, for example, to access details of the largest planning application submitted for the central Ealing area within living memeory (P/2010/4018/9). Green Man Lane Estate, 200 yards south west of West Ealing Station, is to be demolished; sold off to property developers; and replaced with 721 new homes. The size of the development is that of some six football pitches - 11.5 acres. No shops, no schools, no healthcare, no law and order, no sport, no leisure and no culture can be found in the plans. There is no planned integration of the new estate with the immediately adjacent centre of West Ealing or with the planned new Singapore Road Mosque which will attract 3,000 worshippers every Friday.The Council has allowed just 42 days for public consultation. For those with full-time jobs who can't view the plans in Room 58 at Perceval House and are now unable to view the plans online they trully are currently disenfranchised.

Eric Alan Leach ● 6054d6 Comments

It's still down.That's five days now.Web sites were 'invented' over eight years ago.It's not rocket science to make web sites resilient.Why doesn't the Council web site Home Page at least tell us all what's going on?Why doesn't the elected Council Officer responsible for Information Services come onto this web site and tell us what's going on?Well Councillor Phil Taylor?

Eric Alan Leach ● 6052d

Whoops my previous post should have said that the World Wide Web was 'invented' (by a Brit) obver EIGHTEEN years ago.Six days now and the Council's online planning pages are still not working.

Eric Alan Leach ● 6052d

I am waiting for information too Eric. For me the Freedom of Information department worked well then somehow the site they gave me disappeared and I can't get it back. I am now at the mercy of the "Regeneration Team" badly named because this department can't seem to regenerate the information they gave me as the website has been lost into the ether. Not their words but mine. Your beef Eric is with the planning department. I believe that the planning department and the regeneration team arethe responsibility of Cllr. David Millican and Officer Pat Hayes. So what are they doing about these problems. It should only take a phone call with an apology and a new deadline to shut Eric up. Not rocket science. Same for me.Ain't good enough just to sit there and do nothing. Perhaps they think they are too high and mighty to deal with Eric and me. Be honest, just tell us we are rubbish and that is why you don't want to help us.

Arthur Breens ● 6052d

Its not just Eric or Arthur who needed the planning portal to work this week. I know of other people as well.A  note that the timescales will be formally - not informally - extended is what is required.Yet again the planning site goes under and yet again we have very unprofessional standards of communication.There are two Tory Councillors in Northfield Ward who could communicate should they so wish.What will it be like when the Council staff numbers get slashed under the next administration - which is what the media thinks is going to happen?

George Knox ● 6051d

I agree - I think that visiting the Town Hall during their short working hours to see plans is pretty inappropriate nowadays.An extension of time is what is needed when the computer system goes down. Does the Government mention this in any guidelines and if not then why not?Isn't the planning process supposed to be a democratic one?

Philippa Bond ● 6050d

Hoorah!!!The Council's Online Planning Application Service appears to be working again.By my reckoning the online Planning Application database was unavailable for a whole week.Let's see whether the Council's web site Home Page announces the news that the service is back working again; apologises for the week's downtime; and announces a further week's public consultation on all the Planning Applications affected. Mind you I think this latter activity is about as unlikely as Tony Blair apologising for invading Iraq...

Eric Alan Leach ● 6049d