Saturday, October 09, 2010

PLANNING TO HELP ENVIRONMENT

The way local authorities, like North Lincolnshire Council, make information about planning applications/decisions available online these days is marvellous - and very democratic.
However, couldn't they create PDFs of all the supporting documents put online, rather than just scanning the printed sheets and uploading them?
Sections of text in PDF documents can be cut and pasted into computer files or emails, making extraction of information so much easier.
The way things are at present, if you visit the planning section of the websites operated by North Lincolnshire Council and neighbouring West Lindsey you need to print off many of the pages, as you cannot cut and paste the text.
Both authorities, we are sure, want to help the environment by keeping the amount of paper generated to a minimum.
This small change of procedure could cut down a lot of unnecessary printing, and wasted time, for members of the public and businesses interest in planning applications.

4 comments:

Ken Harrison said...

Talking about planning mweetings, Scribs, there's a special planning meeting on the 14th to discuss the major dock-side development proposals at East Halton.
One submission from the Network Rail is expecting a significant increase in rail traffic and mentions retrieving mothballed tracks.
Since the rail traffic has to chuff along towards Barnetby/Brigg - (otherwise pufferS will plop into the sea) how will Brigg be affected?

NIGEL FISHER said...

I think they are making reference to track on the former Barton Light Railway at East Halton. Strangely, the Barton Light Railway never actually ran to Barton! Passenger trains operated between New Holland and Immingham via East Halton. I think it was axed in the mid-1960s (following the Beeching Report). East Halton had a railway station with a wooden booking office. When the village facility closed, the booking office was moved to East Halton Cricket Club's ground at Townside Farm and used as the changing/tea room. You may well be correct in thinking this dockside development will mean more freight along the Brigg line.

Ken Harrison said...

It's amazing! Scoop gets cricket in, however remote the subject!!!

NIGEL FISHER said...

My favourite cricket ground of all time, Townside Farm, East Halton. On-the-ball Ken has grasped why!