Back in October, we had to turn off the list of local planning applications which appeared in the right hand column.  The service is based on postcodes and Royal Mail decided to get heavy handed with the rights they claim over the postcode data, resulting in the service being withdrawn altogether – full details are in the original post.

The service has now been restored although with a slightly cryptic warning that is functioning with reduced postcode accuracy.  But it should mean that we don’t have to rely on spotting notices on lamp posts to find out what is going on.

The return of Planning Alerts may be linked to today’s launch by Sir Tim Berner-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, of a new government website giving access to a huge range of government data for creating just these kinds of useful applications. Planning Alerts is one of the first batch of applications featured on the site.