I’m a big fan of planning alerts and the whole raft of community minded web-geeks who do a brilliant job in harnessing web technology in their own time in the service of a better world (see BCCDIY for a great example).
I subscribed for updates for my own area. It was handy – especially as no similar service is offered by my council. That didn’t bother me, as the gap was being filled. I’d actually been thinking about writing something here about how councils might take advantage of the Planning Alerts API to make information on the planning policy documents/consultations etc available in a similar way.
But before I got around to doing that, Royal Mail legal action against Ernestmarples.com – a site that provides the conversion of postcode info to geo-spatial info that planningalerts is dependent on - shut it down.
if you’d like more information or ideas on what to do about it, please visit the ernestmarples blog.
or:
wee update? not sure how you could be putting Planning Alerts to good effect in your council? Take a look here -
http://mashthestate.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/guerilla-noticeboarding-the-council-with-barcode-posters/ – to see what sutton were doing to give information about planning applications that straddled the borough boundaries…
als. can’t do that now (hopefully only for the time being)
“Guerrilla noticeboarding” is an independent project using a disused council noticeboard, not an official council effort, more’s the pity.
But the Barcode Posters system is available free for everyone to use. Let’s hope Planning Alerts is resurrected soon.