Councillor’s Facebook idea for planning applications (From Echo)
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Councillor’s Facebook idea for planning applications
6:00am Friday 29th January 2010 in News
James Cottis – Facebook advocate
A Rochford councillor wants to bring planning consultations into the 21st century by using social networking sites.
James Cottis, Conservative councillor for Rochford, wants the council to include sites like Facebook and Twitter as part of its consultations when planning applications are received.
He said: “I think local authorities should use Facebook to start public consultations. It is a great way to connect and get people’s ideas.”
Comments(6)
Russ13
says...
9:50am Fri 29 Jan 10
vangebasildon wrote:I don't think that's the idea........
I can't see how that will benefit people. How much will they be spending re-printing paper work to include the Facebook logo etc.
I would imagine they would have a planning page on the social networks that would let people see planning applications in their neibourhood.
Makes sense as this would be easy to maintain and reduce overheads of running a dedicated website to provide such information.
Let's face it, most people have access to the internet/facebook and I would guess more people would be inclined to look at what going on as opposed to trawling through the small print about planning application in local news papers (No offence Evening Echo)
Chris Black
says...
10:12am Fri 29 Jan 10
There used to be a very good national website called planning.alerts.com that would email you whenever there was a planning application within a certain distance of your address. But it closed down because it couldn't afford to pay the Post Office for postcode data.
However James will be fighting a tough battle. The councillor in charge of the District Council website doesn't have a computer and most members of RDC that I've spoken to seem to be hostile towards Facebook, let alone Twitter.
Cllr Chris Black
www.onlinefocus.org
Nebs
says...
9:57pm Fri 29 Jan 10
Chris Black
says...
9:37am Sat 30 Jan 10
Nebs wrote:That's right Nebs, but having a Facebook page for planning applications for each council ward would make it a bit easier for people to find out in the first place that there WAS a planning application in their ward.
All southend planning applications are already on the internet. You can read all the paperwork, and submit comments online. What more do you need?
APR
says...
11:10am Sat 30 Jan 10
vangebasildon says...
8:39am Fri 29 Jan 10