Council suspends planning consultation following IT failures (From Harrow Times)

Harrow Borough Council suspends consultation on Vaughan School expansion following IT problems

4:20pm Wednesday 9th January 2013 in News By Emma Innes

Harrow Borough Council has suspended the consultation on the Vaughan School expansion following news that people are struggling to access online planning documents.

This morning Harrow’s Conservative group hit out at “appalling” IT failures at the council which are blocking the public’s access to important documents.

The Tories noted that one of the key problems is that people are unable to obtain planning documents related to the proposed Vaughan School expansion.

The group told the Harrow Times that documents are not opening, old documents are being mixed up with new ones and duplicates are being presented.

As a result, the council has suspended the consultation until the IT problems are resolved.

Portfolio holder for planning, Councillor Keith Ferry, said: “We have been experiencing some technical difficulties with the Vaughan School online planning application which has meant that people have been unable to access it and make their comments.

"As a result of this, we have suspended the consultation for the time being.

"We are very sorry for any inconvenience this has caused and are working to ensure it is resolved as soon as possible. 

"When we can relaunch the consultation we will let people know via our website and a notice in the local press.”

Councillor Susan Hall, leader of the Conservative group, has been contacted by some of the concerned residents.

She said: “Our residents deserve much better than this, and it’s appalling they have experienced so many problems when trying to obtain these planning documents.

“These are significant developments which the residents are hugely concerned about. “

Cllr Hall said the problems had reached the point where the authority had offered to put documents on CDs for residents, but that this did not fix underlying problems.

She added: “Labour’s IT problems in Harrow seem to be going from bad to worse.

“Labour boasts a lot about how much money they’re pumping into IT, but with all these problems being reported it’s clear they’re not getting value for taxpayers’ money - and it’s those taxpayers who suffer most when the council’s IT doesn’t work properly.”