Case Study: North Somerset Council achieves fewer invalid planning applications and significant officer time and cost savings with Ordnance Survey's online constraints mapping

North Somerset Council - Customer Case Study

North Somerset Council faced around 3,000 planning applications a year, with at least 50% judged invalid and handling those cases consuming 40–60% of four full‑time officers’ time. The council also fielded 10–12 daily calls about site permissions (costing about £61/day) plus another 8–10 designation queries, so it partnered with Ordnance Survey and used OS MasterMap® Topography Layer plus a range of raster datasets (supplied under the Public Sector Mapping Agreement) to improve online mapping and site constraint visibility.

Ordnance Survey’s datasets were integrated into North Somerset’s interactive online constraints mapping (automatically updated every night), centralising planning constraint information and making it freely available to agents and the public. As a result, the council reported significant reductions in officer time spent on invalid applications, a big drop in costly phone and face‑to‑face enquiries (with daily enquiry costs potentially falling from about £61 to £3.40), and ongoing annual cost savings as the number of invalid applications continues to fall.

North Somerset Council

Jason Beale

System and Performance Manager