We are aware that sometimes our planning committee meetings happen before residents are notified of a neighbouring planning application due to delays with the post.
We have spoken to the planning authority (Greater Cambridge Planning) and they have recommended that residents can register an account on their Public Access service and set up a saved search with email notifications, this way they will be getting notified the same day any application is made valid that matches their search criteria.
There is a very detailed user guide on the South Cambs website: https://www.scambs.gov.uk/planning/public-access-user-guide
If you are interested basic instructions are:
- Register an account and log in with that account.
- Set up a search using the Advanced Search page, it is suggested to select the Parish and then enter a Date Validated from, maybe a week before today’s date, and then set a date a couple of years from now. The quirk in the system is that the search needs to return at least 1 result for you to be able to save it.
- In the search results you will see an option to “Save search”, click this.
- Give the search a meaningful name and select “Notify me via email about new search results” and save.
- Now every time a new application is entered into the system in the selected Parish with a valid date between the ones you have specified you will get an email alert at 7am.
You can save multiple searches on an account, so you can set them for new applications and decisions or multiple parishes etc.
Greater Cambridge Planning will still send out notifications in the post as normal, but this is an extra faster route through which to receive notifications.
Finally, our planning committee meetings are held twice a month (next one on 23rd May) and all meeting dates for the next municipal year will be set at the Annual Meeting on 18th May and then updated to our website.