Reply To: On-line Planning Permission,

In my own opinion, this would be a great advance, but:

a) How many developers would want people to be able to discuss and understand their development on a website. Imagine, it could become a breeding ground for discontent and be the incubator for community focus groups trying to stop development. And wouldn’t that be a bad thing

b) As many firms still do their drawings in CAD, as 3D walkthroughs are still expensive and completely unfeasible for all but the largest developments, we would still be faced with the “I don’t understand the drawings ” syndrome. Even as an experienced plan reader, it still takes me a few minutes to get my head around drawings and that’s when I have the drawings in my hands.

I definitely think it’s an idea for the future. Building developers should however embrace this idea now as its a good way to defuse arguments and rumours about a development by being open from the start of the planning process. Placing all of the design details online would be a start. As it’s normally the bigger developments that cause all the grief, creating walkthroughs etc would be worth it in terms of PR and reduced legal fees.