Overview

Gerard Tucker, the Glastonbury Town Council Clerk, uses Parish Online for a wide range of purposes. He finds that creating maps in Parish Online helps to communicate ideas quickly and clearly, and this saves time and improves decision-making. Some examples are described below.

 

Challenge

The management of a town is a complex business which involves many different layers of geographic information such as council boundaries, development boundaries, industrial zoning, local green spaces, and many more. These layers of information are constantly being updated via revisions to various national, regional and neighbourhood plans. The challenge is to be able to extract all the information relevant to a particular issue so that it can be seen and understood.

 

Solution

 

Glastonbury uses Parish Online to build a clear picture of all the information relevant to each particular purpose. Gerard Tucker says “Parish Online takes all the guesswork out of decision-making because everybody can clearly see the information which is relevant to each case. A picture is worth a thousand words, and I couldn’t communicate my ideas or explain my decisions nearly so easily without Parish Online”.

Here are a few simple examples:

a)      Conservation Areas

 

The current conservation area (blue polygon) is being extended as shown by the two red extensions to the West. This simple map makes it crystal clear for people submitting planning applications whether or not their plan is in the conservation area (or in the planned extension area)

b)     Development Boundary