The Mayor of London made a commitment in his 2021 manifesto to review how local communities could be further involved in the planning decisions that affect them. Commonplace working in collaboration with the Greater London Authority (GLA) Planning and Regeneration team have responded to this brief by developing a solution that:
- Is engaging.
- Is transparent.
- Gets more Londoners involved in the Planning process, giving them a stronger voice on the city’s built environment.
The opportunity to work in partnership to redesign the way in which major planning applications are consulted on for the Mayor of London has been exciting and daunting in equal measure. Central to this innovative project was the belief that all Londoners should be able to easily find all the information about any potential major development and “have their say” as easily as possible. This is informed by insights from Commonplace showing that 75% of its users access the platform via tablet and mobile phone, meaning a platform that improves access through these devices are critical for citizen and community engagement.
PlanApps offers information on planning applications at a glance. It allows users, who may not be aware of the complexity of the planning process to understand what is proposed in their area. They can access:
- The development site via an interactive map.
- A photograph of the proposed development.
- Headline facts about what is proposed.
- The timeline and next steps for the planning decision.
- Clear directions on what they can do to engage and comment on an application.
Users can sign up to alerts to be informed of new applications or how an application is progressing. Any part of an application can be shared with family, friends, colleagues via WhatsApp, Facebook, X, Threads etc. which makes PlanApps user-friendly and accessible.
Undertaking a project such as this which puts the needs of users at the heart of an innovative solution, requires discipline, patience, and a willingness to try new things and change. The GLA team worked closely with Commonplace to make the user experience as rich, intuitive and seamless as possible from ensuring the fullness of the site’s accessibility to condensing the Mayor’s planning processes and removing as much Planning jargon as possible.
Behind the scenes, the developers and planners had the painstaking task of creating a multitude of protocols which could retrieve applications with complex planning naming conventions and present them on a navigational map alongside other live major applications in an uncomplicated and user-friendly way.
This project is a landmark for several reasons, but most of all because of what it means for the industry. The GLA is the first planning authority to fully integrate different systems in their back office, to the user interface.