Planning applications

Why planning applications are handled separately

Parish and town councils are usually consulted on planning applications but do not decide them. The district or borough council, as planning authority, holds the official record. A clerk's job is to bring the relevant applications to a meeting, record the council's response, and later report what the planning authority decided.

CouncilPapers therefore keeps planning applications apart from ordinary agenda content. An application is first imported and given a purpose, and only then placed on an agenda, so you can collect applications as they appear and decide later which meeting they belong to.

The three building blocks

Import

An import is CouncilPapers' record of one application: reference, address, proposal, ward, applicant, case officer, date received, status and a link back to the planning authority's page. Imports are made with a bookmarklet that reads the planning page in your browser. They are listed under Planning Imports and belong to your council only.

An import is a snapshot. Its status is the status at the time of import, and it does not update itself if the planning authority later changes the application. You can correct details by hand, or import the page again.

Purpose

A purpose says why an application is going on an agenda:

One import can have several purposes over its life. Typically an application is added For Consultation first, and Final Status Reached later, once the decision is known. Each purpose can be used once, on one agenda item.

A purpose can carry Optional Additional Agenda Text, a short line printed after the description, for example to explain why an application has returned to the agenda.

Agenda item

When a purpose is used, CouncilPapers creates a child item under the agenda item you choose, such as "Planning Applications". The purpose then shows as Used and links to that item. The imported details are copied into the item, which is an ordinary agenda item from then on: you can edit it, attach papers, reorder it or delete it.

How the pieces relate

Import (one application)
  └─ Purpose: For Consultation ──► Agenda item on the June agenda
  └─ Purpose: Final Status Reached ──► Agenda item on the September agenda

Deleting an agenda item frees its purpose to be used again. Changing an import afterwards does not alter items already created from it.

Consultation deadlines

An import can carry a Consultation Date, the last day for responses to the planning authority. It is shown as the Deadline when you add applications to an agenda, which helps you decide which meeting can still respond in time. It is for the clerk's use and is not copied onto the agenda item.

Tags and search

When an application is added to an agenda, its item is tagged Planning Applications | [reference] and, where the address has a postcode, Planning Applications | [postcode]. Councillors can then find every mention of an application across meetings. See Tagging.

Things to be aware of

• Applications can only be added to an uncommitted Major Version agenda. See Agenda versions.
• Items created from imports are public and appear in search results. Edit the item if an application should be confidential.
• The bookmarklet works best with Idox Public Access and Northgate systems. Other systems may need details entering or correcting by hand.

Next step

For the step-by-step procedure, see Adding planning applications to an agenda.