Watford Borough Council is one of just 13 local authorities to win up to £100,000 from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ (DLUHC) PropTech Engagement Fund.
The funding will be use to take forward a project primarily focused on improving the way the council uses digital technology when consulting on planning applications.
The first phase of this involves:
- Ensuring that digital platforms are easily accessible for all Watford residents
- Using visual tools online to enhance the engagement process for residents looking at planning applications so they can access and understand the planning information quicker and easier
- Increasing the number of residents currently registered for planning alerts.
Elected Mayor of Watford Peter Taylor said: “There was huge competition for this funding and I’m delighted that we’ve secured a significant sum of money to support this important project. We want to enable more residents to engage with planning applications, so that all sections of our community are helping to shape our town. To make this happen, we will not only use the funding to make the online process much easier for people to use but will also pilot new ways of engaging with residents.”
As part of the project, the council will be launching a campaign to encourage more people to sign up for planning alerts, proactively encouraging greater awareness of and interaction with planning applications in Watford.
Too late. Watford has been ruined by the continual passing of planning applications for high rise blocks of flats by the planning department. Making more people aware of the planning applications will not stop them being passed because the public’s concerns aways eem to be ignored in Watford.