ATTEMPTS to speed up the planning process in Northumberland are in danger of running off the road.

From being one of the most open, transparent and easily accessible functions of Northumberland County Council, the machinations of the planning department have become as difficult to access as the arcane secrets of the Magic Circle. To most people, the inner workings of local authorities are duller than Roy Cropper‘s shopping bag – apart from planning matters.

The monthly meetings of the planning committee at Prospect House in Hexham were guaranteed to pack the public benches for debates on everything from giant warehouses in Prudhoe to football field hi-jinks in Haltwhistle. Interested parties were able to pore over every detail of every application at their leisure in the Old Grammar School, and discuss them with planning officers.

Then came the cultural revolution of the Great Leap to Centralisation, with the Old Grammar School sold off, followed this summer by the scrapping of all planning meetings in Hexham.

People are still able to view planning applications and make comments online – but only if they are exceptionally computer literate, and assuming that the county council’s labyrinthine public access portal is not suffering one of its all too frequent malfunctions.

The system was down over the entire weekend, and again on Tuesday, at a critical time when councillors and members of the public alike were supposed to be enjoying the opportunity to scrutinise the 67 complex documents associated with the most significant change to public transport in Tynedale since the 1930s – the relocation of the bus station to Loosing Hill.

There is a public perception that the county council is doing its level best to exclude the public and parish councils from the planning process, and it is to be hoped that the promised beefing up of the public access service happens sooner rather than later.