Going for gold

摘要

One of the councils key priorities is to drive economic vitality by building on the district's reputation as an easy place to do business! It already provides a wide range of business support, from advice on grants and running awards to promoting opportunities for firms to network and expand. But the backbone to any area's success in guiding sustainable growth is the local authority's planning service. Members have committed to invest in planning and a new chief planning officer joined the team in February. We're aiming for the gold standard - to be the best planning service,' says Helen Kemp, director of economy and planning. We're redesigning the process for the customer journey and are putting a new IT system in place to support that. Developers and agents want more commercial awareness in planning and we're working to improve on that.'