About the client

Harrogate Borough Council’s Planning and Development Department is responsible for monitoring planning permissions and housing developments in the region, ensuring growth is managed in line with local needs and evolving government legislation.

The challenge

The department was relying on a mix of Microsoft Access and Excel files to manage day-to-day work. This created several challenges:

• Systems used by other departments were not flexible enough to provide the specific reporting tools needed.
• Generating reports that kept up with changes in government legislation was difficult.
• Reliance on Access and Excel required technical knowledge not all staff possessed.
• The IT department had serious concerns about data security, backups and ongoing support of these local files.

The Council therefore needed a solution that was secure, flexible and accessible to all staff while integrating seamlessly into existing IT infrastructure.

The solution

Hero designed and delivered the Local Plan System, a Windows application tailored to the department’s needs:

• Integrating data from multiple sources including the Council’s Oracle database, geospatial processing tools, mapping software and a public consultation database.
• Tracking planning data through its lifecycle, enabling staff to see the exact stage each planning permission or housing development was at.
• Providing advanced search tools, allowing users to filter data by almost any attribute, save search configurations as favourites and quickly rerun common queries.
• Supporting reporting and evidence generation, producing reports that describe future development plans and record the evidence behind decisions.
• Ensuring data integrity, retaining historical snapshots of data used in reports, even when the underlying data changes later.
• Meeting IT requirements by fitting within the Council’s security standards, network access policies and backup routines without requiring exceptions.

The impact

• Creation of complex, accurate reports aligned to shifting government legislation has been enabled.
• Reliance on technical expertise has reduced, making the system accessible to all staff.
• Transparency and accountability have improved by preserving data as it existed when reports were published.
• Compliance with IT policies on security, maintenance and backup has been strengthened.
• A modern, flexible tool has been delivered that streamlines planning and monitoring tasks across the department.