Agenda

Delegated planning decisions for the week beginning 30 July 2018 are attached.  Contact for enquiries: Jean McPherson, Group Manager: Development Management on 01293 438577.

Crawley Borough Council’s new Online Planning Register website was launched successfully on Tuesday 31th July.  This website is the Council’s searchable online register for planning applications, which can be accessed from the Crawley website and also directly here: https://planningregister.crawley.gov.uk/.

As well as the usual search functionality, new features have been introduced which will make the site easier to use on mobile or tablet devices, enable the public to search for applications using a map and to receive notifications about applications they are interested in.  In addition this is another application that has been migrated off the Crawley legacy website platform and is now hosted on the Microsoft Azure platform in the cloud.

In a busy time for the Planning and ICT departments, both teams collaborated well with supplier DEF software to overcome a number of issues to deliver the project.  Over 200,000 documents were migrated to the new platform as a part of this work.  The quality and accuracy checking of these documents by the Planning team was a significant undertaking.

Following the decision of the Cabinet in March 2017 to delegate authority to The Head of Economic and Environmental Services in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Planning and Economic Development and the Head of Legal and Democratic Services to award the contract for the work to Queensway and The Pavement, officers have undertaken a procurement exercise.

A total of six tenders were submitted. The successful bidder was decided based on a combined score of both their Cost and Quality, with Cost making up 60% and Quality making up 40% of the overall score. The tender was advertised on contracts finder and the SE shared services portfolio as an open tender between 27 April 2018 and 25 June 2018.

During the evaluation process the panel was made up of representatives from Built Environment department, Procurement and Economic Regeneration. The tender responses were separated in to Quality response and Cost responses so each section of the panel could focus on one area without having any prejudice based on cost/quality influence. Procurement reviewed the documents in full. Following evaluation by the officers individually, a moderation meeting took place on Tuesday 17 July to discuss scores awarded and to agree a final moderated score. This resulted in clarifications being sought from suppliers. Which after receiving, a final score was agreed and awarded.

Bidder 5 was identified as the preferred tender.

The scheme, which will continue the regeneration of the town centre, is being jointly funded by Crawley Borough Council, West Sussex County Council and the Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership.

The area will see the installation of high quality paving to the pedestrianized areas on Queensway and the Pavement to complement the paving installed for Queens Square; power and water provision for the future market; installation of new street furniture and street lighting; resurfacing the carriageway of the road section of Queensway; new landscaping and planting and amendments to road signage and parking arrangements.

More detailed information relating to the procurement is attached for Councillors only.

Information relating to staff changes for July 2018 are attached for Councillors only.

Press releases are available at www.crawley.gov.uk/news