Customers invited to share Planning Service experiences

The Council’s Planning Service has launched a customer satisfaction survey to allow users of the service to share their experiences.

Anyone who has utilised the Council’s Development Management or Development and Marine Planning Service – whether as an individual, agency or agent – will be asked to fill in a short questionnaire providing their views.

It is hoped feedback will highlight areas which are working well but also potentially identify areas that need to be improved.

The survey will be open to anyone who has had direct dealings with the Planning Service, and a link to the survey will be included in correspondence.

The Council’s Head of Planning, Development and Regulatory Services, Roddy MacKay, said: “We are proactively seeking views of our customers – recognising the things we do well, but, importantly, identifying and building on the areas that need to be improved.

“Our Service receives fairly high volumes of enquiries every week in addition to those submitting applications, so we are hoping for a fairly high level of response.

“The short questionnaire will be shared with anyone who has had direct dealings with the Services mentioned via email and we plan to keep the survey open for the foreseeable.”

Despite the pandemic, 2020 was a busy year for the Planning Service, with officers working around new complexities of inspecting sites when travel was restricted, as well as statutory requirements such as publishing applications, notifying neighbours and displaying site notices. Despite the challenges, Development Management suspended the planning application process for only two weeks.

Mr MacKay said: “Over the course of 2020, Development Management received 489 planning and other applications from across the county. That was an increase of 8% compared to the same period during 2019.

“Over 460 decisions were issued, with 97% of applications approved. Approximately 95% of those decisions were issued by officers, with the remaining 5% decided by the Council’s Planning Committee.

“Approvals during 2020 included applications for over 200 new houses, multiple food and drink premises, shops and other businesses, and visitor accommodation. Other applications approved ranged from house extensions to agricultural buildings, fish farm development and works related to wind farms, and approximately 30 listed building consents.

“In addition, approximately 500 formal written planning enquiries were processed over the year, in addition to regular telephone enquiries. All that advice was provided free of charge.”

The Planning Service also welcomed participation in an independent review of its performance during 2020. With some fine tuning adjustments recommended to some practices and procedures, the review reached a positive conclusion - that the Planning Service in Orkney is high-performing, operating in a manner in line with professional practice and levels of propriety as a statutory planning authority, and producing good outputs and examples of good practice. Improvements identified in an action plan are already being implemented, including reinstating a Planning and Building Stakeholder Forum, a group involving the Council and contractors and agents from the development industry aimed at providing opportunity for discussion between the planning authority and industry into the future.

In line with Scottish Government advice, the Planning Service will continue to support temporary solutions and take a more relaxed approach to enforcement action until the end of September 2021 in relation to reasonable measures taken by businesses. This includes many situations that would normally require a planning application, including the use of outdoor space for food and drink or retail, the use of tents or other temporary outdoor structures, and enterprises such as cake and honesty boxes. The Planning Service remains available to provide planning advice regarding these temporary measures, or other development.