PA website still lacks facility to search enforcements by locality

The new Planning Authority website still lacks the facility to search for enforcements issued against planning infringements  in each Maltese and Gozitan locality because the new website can search only for planning applications by locality.  Users can still search for pending enforcement but only if they know the enforcement number.

The website, launched last week, was immediately criticised for lacking the facility to search applications by location. A day after the omission was highlighted by MaltaToday, the authority re-introduced this search facility.

But the old website included a list of pending enforcements in each of the 68 Maltese and Gozitan localities. In the present website one can only search for an enforcement of one knows the planning number. This means that there is no way through which one can know whether the PA has issued any new enforcement in any Maltese locality through a simple search on the website.

As a PA spokesperson explained the "front portal  user is able to search any enforcement notice by number, as  was always the case from day one. Besides the geoportal,  the calendar give the user the facility to see all the weekly enforcement notices the Authoity would have issued".

As things stand one cannot search enforcements through a search by locality. The only way to check enforcement is through the geo-portal by zooming in a particular area and checking whether there is a pending enforcement.  To do this one has to ensure that the geoportal is zoomed at a 1:2000 scale level.

Another feature in the old website which is still lacking is a list of pending ODZ (Outside Development Zone) and UCA (Urban Conservation Areas) applications in the 68 Maltese and Gozitan localities.

This gave easy access to pending ODZ applications to the public. As things stand, to check for pending ODZ applications in a particular locality one has to download all the applications presented in a particular locality and scroll down to identify ODZ applications. A spokesperson for the authority did not exclude the reintroduction of these search facilities.

“Further services and search capabilities will be provided as part of our ongoing programme to enhance the online user experience,” the spokesperson said. He also insisted that the new website was not created to deprive or restrict the public from accessing development planning data.

“The authority had used the analytics of the old website to guide it on what services were the most popular and commonly used,” he added.