Action on Climate in Teignbridge (ACT)

Planning Applications Index

Teignbridge district council have a facility on their website that allows members of the public to search and view planning applications. This allows searching for applications by application number, postcode, map and advanced search. If you wish to find out about several applications using this facility, you need to navigate between pages many times. ACT has developed an application which enables you to see on one page:

  • All current applications
  • The application details page without the map
  • A list of all documents relating to each application

This works by keeping a file of all current applications up to date by automated use of the advanced search facility to add any applications added since last run. This then refreshes its copy of each application. The process to do this is run at 2am and 6pm each day, so that it picks up objections and comments made in the evening as well as updates and new applications added during the day.

The planning applications index can be used here.

This article covers:

The tool now has two tabs:

  • Applications
  • Analysis

The applications tab gives a list of all applications with the ability to filter them.

The analysis tab gives an analysis of all applications.

Filtering

At the top of the applications page is panel containing filters, which allows you to select just those applications that meet the criteria specified in the filter:

  • Dates
    • Sort by – date field in the application to use for sorting and selection, can be:
      • Date received – when TDC downloaded the application from the planning portal.
      • Date validated – when TDC determined that all information needed to determine the planning application is present.
      • Publicity expiry – the end of the period when public comment can be made
      • Target date – the date the TDC intend to make a decision on the application.
      • Date last updated – the latest of:
        • The date the application was received if before 20/6/2021
        • The date the application was added to the index
        • The date of the latest document on the application when the index was last updated.
      • Date created – the date the application was received is before 20/6/2021, otherwise the date the application was added to the index.
    • Oldest first – the oldest applications are determined first, by default the most recent application appears at the top.
    • From – applications on or after this date will be selected
    • To – application on or before this date will be selected
    • Clear – resets the date to the left of it.
  • Where
    • Parish – only applications in this parish will be selected.
    • Ward – only applications in this ward will be selected.
    • WW Area – only applications in the ward will be selected (these are generally parishes, except for Newton Abbot where they are district wards).
  • Types
    • Type – type of application from the list offered in TDC’s advanced search
    • Sub Cat – major applications are further categorised into:
      • Outline
      • Not Outline
      • Variation of condition
      • Hybrid
      • Reserved matters
      • Removal of condition
      • Full
    • Decision level – who will approve the application:
      • Delegated decision – determined by a planning officer
      • Committee – determined by the planning committee
      • Not set – not yet determined
      • Appeal – determined by the planning inspector or secretary of state.
      • Other
    • Decision:
      • Not yet decided
      • Decided
      • Withdrawn
      • Refused
      • Granted/approved
      • Exempt
  • ACT
    • Objected – ACT has objected to the application:
      • Objected
      • No objection
    • Objection Status – what has happened following objection
      • Live – nothing significant has happened following objection
      • Ignored – application has been approved without resolving the issue objected to
      • Accepted – the necessary action has been taken to resolve the objection
      • Not approved – the application has either been refused or withdrawn
    • ACT Status – status assigned by ACT to the application
      • Unclassified – ACT hasn’t assigned a status
      • Classified – ACT has assigned a status
      • Objected – There is a live objection
      • Insufficient detail – There is a carbon reduction plan(CRP), but not enough detail has been given
      • Good – The CRP indicates a significantly greater level of emissions reduction than policy required
      • Pass – The CRP indicates just enough emissions reduction to meet policy requirements
      • Fail – The CRP does not indicate enough reduction to meet policy requirements
      • Missed opportunity – Permission has been granted without a CRP or condition to apply one.
      • Plan conditioned – permission has been granted with a condition to produce a CRP
      • Plan not relevant – application relates to something where a CRP is not relevant
      • Further investigation – CRP requires further investigation to determine a suitable classification
    • Carbon Reduction plan – indicates if application has a carbon reduction plan
      • Has plan
      • No plan
  • Search – free text searches of fields in application
    • Reference – looks for an application with this reference
    • Address – looks for matching addresses
    • Proposal – looks for matching proposals
    • Documents – looks for documents with a match in either the description or title.
      • Not – looks for documents which do not match
      • No documents – looks for applications with no documents
  • Refresh – fetched documents and reapplies the current filter
  • Copy link – copies a link matching the current criteria to clipboard

Reference has now been added to this group, but this simply matches the supplied reference, this is different from what is described in the following section.

Search applies to the address, proposal and latest documents. If an entry is made in any of these fields, then the corresponding field is searched for matching a matching text. Text matching is not case sensitive. You can enter a number of strings to be matched as alternatives by putting commas (,) between them.

In the case of documents the Not checkbox has been added, this finds applications that do not have any documents with the given text in either title or description.

Examples

In address enter TQ12 would find all applications in TQ12

In proposal entering diesel,gas would find any application whose proposal refered to diesel or gas.

In documents entering carbon would find any application with a document whose description or title referenced carbon.

In documents entering carbon and then checking the not box, would find applications that do not have any document with carbon in their title or description.

Viewing applications

When the list of applications is initially displayed you see:

  • The application reference, which links to the application on TDC’s site
  • A + symbol, which you can click to see
  • The proposal

If you click on the + symbol the details of the application are shown together with a summary of its documents including:

  • Number of pages of documents available
  • Link to the documents page for the application on the TDC site
  • Filters for documents by type
  • Documents with links – we now collect direct links to some document types these appear in a separate list for convenience. ACT uses these documents for classification of applications.
  • All documents – a list of all documents associated with the application.

As well as filtering using the filter parameters at the top of the page we can create custom links that show only applications meeting the criteria specified in the link:

Major applications

The Wildlife Warden’s map has a link for each Wildlife Warden area to planning applications related to that area, as shown below.

Alerts

We have now provided a facility for those who have signed up for ACT emails to register for email alerts. This will allow you to specify a filter for applications you are interested in and frequency of alert.

You can sign up for ACT emails using the join page. The alert registration page checks you are currently subscribed and will not let you proceed unless you are.

Once you have given ACT your email address, you can sign up for alerts here.

The alert signup process is as follows:

  • You register for alerts by filling in your email on the alert registration page.
  • You will then be sent an email with a link to enable you to set up your notifications.
  • When you get the email follow the link and start setting up your notifications.

The email should look like this:

Clicking the link takes you to the notification page, which initially appears as follows:

You can now set up your first notification. You can select:

  • Either a ward or parish (but not both)
  • A type of application
  • To receive any updates daily or weekly.
  • To just receive new applications or any change to an application of interest.
  • To just receive updates for a specific application.

Once you have set your filtering parameters press Add.

Your notification will now be added, and the page will change as follows:

You can now change the details of your notification by changing settings and pressing the Update button. You can also delete your notification by pressing Delete.

You can also add further notifications setting up a new filter and pressing the Add button.

Example

I have set up a more complex example:

Here I want to receive:

  • A daily notification of any change to a major application.
  • Weekly notification of new applications in Bradley ward.
  • Any change to specific application that I am interested in.

Notification emails

Daily notifications are produced at 00:00 GMT every day.

Weekly notifications are produced at 00:00 GMT on saturdays, so these are available on saturday morming.

A typical notification email looks like:

You get a link for each notification that meets the criteria. If you follow this link it will bring up a customised link that meets your criteria.

You can also unsubscribe or change criteria by following the ‘here’ link.

Amending your notifications later.

Once you have left the notification setup page, you can get back to it by either:

  • Following the link from your signup email.
  • Follow the ‘here’ link in the notifications email.
  • Entering your email again in the registration form and repeating the signup process, note that this remembers your email address so your settings are kept.

Note that if you re-register, the original link you were sent will no longer work.

Analysis

The analysis tab provides two analyses:

  • Emissions savings summary
  • Major application classification

Emissions savings summary

This analysis looks at all applications that have sufficient data to calculate:

  • The total floor area of building
  • TER based emissions – that would occur if building complied with building regulations 2013 part L
  • DER based emissions – that would occur if the building complied with the specification in the carbon reduction plan
  • Emissions saving – saving as a result of higher building standard.

Major Application Classification

This analysis of major applications shows for each year that applications are received breakdown by:

  • Objection status
  • ACT classification
  • Carbon reduction plan status

The breakdown is presented as a table with links:

Each cell in the table contains a count of the major applications in the category, with a link. If you click the link a new tab will open with the applications tab showing a list of the applications that meet the criteria.

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