Council faces criticism over planning portal glitches

Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Planning chiefs say they are ‘actively working’ to sort out problems with their new planning portal after councillors raised concerns that key documents and applications have become inaccessible.

Powys County Council started using software by Arcus for their online “built environment public register” in April.

However, planning applications received before April 20 continued to be processed using the previous Idox system, and older applications disappeared with a message appearing on the web page reading “service unavailable.”

The council shared a notice on the planning portal that reads; “please be aware that we are currently experiencing temporary limitations in accessing documents for some planning applications within the planning portal.”

The problems were brought up at the council’s Planning Committee meeting on Thursday, August 6, when plans for a 122.5 metres weather mast at land 3.5 kilometres south east of Llanfihangel Rhydithon came before councillors.

The mast is associated with the Nant Mithil Energy Park proposal, which could potentially see 30 turbines with a maximum height of 220 metres built at the site.

Two other similar weather masts associated with the development have been approved at the site – but the documents associated with them have not been available for comparison.

Senior planning officer Kate Bowen explained: “This is because we have moved to a new software system.

“Since July 16 documents related to some previous applications have not been available.”

Later in the meeting the committee received the delegated planning decision list – this notes the decisions made by planning officers since the last meeting.

Cllr Jonathan Wilkinson (Conservative – Llangyniew and Meifod) said: “Previously I found the delegated list really easy to navigate, all the wards were on the left-hand side, and I could see my ward quickly, that hasn’t happened this time.”

He asked the planning chiefs when this would be fixed.

Senior planning officer Richard Edwards said: “We are aware of it and there are other matters that we wish to address with our new software provider.

“Work is going on with IT to transfer documents on the public website as well. We acknowledge what you’re saying, and it is something we want to correct as soon as we’re able to.”