Under a competitive tender Northamptonshire County Council’s Planning department chose Opus3 as their preferred system for publishing and managing their LDF and planning policy maps and documents online. You can see their live site for the Minerals and Waste Development Plan here.

Shari Nelson, the MWDF Manager at Northamptonshire said:

Northamptonshire County Council’s (NCC) Planning Service has recently (December 2010) gone live with Opus 3 Online LDF Mapping. The hosted service provides for online public access to LDF documents linked to an interactive map (and vice versa).

NCC has used the interactive mapping component for the purpose of an electronic Proposals Map linking to policies within the LDF documents, and as a land use & planning constraints map. Positive feedback has been received from the public regarding its ease of use and increased access to information.

Staff within the Planning Service worked with the Global Mapping & Blue Fox (GM & BF) project team throughout the implementation of the project and found the GM & BF project team to be easy to communicate with. The service provided was customer focused and efficient. Where issues were encountered we were able to contact the GM & BF project team who were able to assist our staff, or took action to rectify the issue in a timely manner.

Opus 3 met all of the Councils requirements, and included other features and tools that were not required but are seen to add value to the end product (e.g. drawing tools) and deliver a better service to the public.