Powys County Council Planning Portal Currently Inaccessible

THE ability to read and scrutinise planning applications lodged with Powys County Council (PCC) is not possible at the moment as the council’s planning portal is broken.
Earlier this week, residents who had gone online to search and find out the status of a planning application in the Welshpool area contacted the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) to say that they were having issues accessing the public portal.
They feared that the issue was with their own internet connection – but it was confirmed that the problems are with the council’s software.
A message has now appeared on the webpage for planning services which warns users that the page is not working.
A PCC spokeswoman said: “The planning portal is currently unavailable.
“We are working to restore the service as soon as possible.
“We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
This is the latest issue hampering Powys council’s public planning portal.
In April, the council started using software by Arcus for its online “built environment public register”.
In July, the ability to view older planning applications on the Idox system, which were still being processed, disappeared, with a message appearing on the webpage simply saying “service unavailable”.
At planning committee meetings in both September and back in August, councillors brought up the issues they and residents, as well as town and community councils, have experienced when trying to use and navigate the new system.
Planning officers told them that they were aware of the problems and were trying to address them with the software provider.
They added that work was also taking place within the council to transfer planning documents onto the new system.
During discussion of the issue at last month’s meeting, development management team leader Gemma James said that work was also taking place on producing a user guide which would explain to people how to use the planning portal.
This was supposed to be: “made available on the website shortly.” ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​

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By BBC LDRS ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​