Website hits on town planning site continue to soar

Latest user statistics for the site, operated by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), reveal page requests for April to June (2008) breaching the 300,000 figure for the first time, while total usage in the first six months of this year matches that of the whole of 2005.

Developed by learning publishers, Echelon Learning on behalf of the RTPI, planningmatters.co.uk is both a job support and learning resource for planners.

It offers bespoke planning modules, a suite of interactive self-assessment activities, a portfolio of useful web-links and related articles and journals, and a library of generic management skills materials, These self-assessments combined with a personal electronic learning log also enable planners to monitor and record their continued professional development (CPD). Content can be acquired on a pay-as-you-go or subscription basis from 2 and 50 respectively.

Blog popular draw
A legal commentary in the form of a fortnightly blog on new planning legislation and its interpretation by the Courts and local authorities is a popular draw to the site.

Record overall visits to the site can be partly attributed to growth in numbers of licentiates and RTPI appointed mentors opening accounts. Licentiates and mentors now make up nearly 25% of the total RTPI membership, says the organisation.

One of the benefits of being a mentor/licentiate RTPI member is free access to the legal commentary, which for example this week examines:

- progress of the Planning Bill through both Houses of Parliament;

- new regulations regarding environmental impact assessment in connection with applications for mineral planning permission;

- the case of R (E Riding of Yorks Council) v. Hobson [2008] EWHC 1003 (Admin) in regard to listed building alterations.

Free-to-access content is another draw to www.planningmatters.co.uk. This currently includes a recently updated module on Transport Planning and a valuable management kit bag of Project Scheduling Tools.

Visitors can brush up on how to create and use a Gantt Chart, how to control the timing of a project through Critical Path Analysis, and how to monitor a project's progress through a Milestone Chart.

New and updated content is published regularly on the site where the latest module to be published analyses the National Planning Framework for Scotland.