Recently, I had a chance to chat with Anthony Stephenson, Group Leader for Development Management at Salford City Council, winners of the Royal Town Planning Institute’s Planning Authority of the Year award. We talked about the innovative work being done with digital planning at Salford City Council, and how Objective Trapeze has supported their success.

I began our conversation by congratulating the team on their incredible success. Anthony remarked that “it’s been fantastic for the team. The team have done some really good work in the last couple of years, and so to be formally recognised with an award here, we’re really happy. It’s a good pat on the back for the team”.

When asked about the impact of the team's work on the community, Anthony emphasised “it’s about delivering the things that the community needs. We need to get the right houses in the right places, the jobs for the people, make sure that the design is of the highest quality”.

Digital planning has been a hot topic of discussion lately, and it was a big part of Salford's nomination and award recognition. The team began their digital transformation journey by reviewing their current processes and business systems, and Objective Trapeze emerged as their chosen solution.

We’re a team that works with plans day in, day out. We’ve been looking at software to work with plans, and obviously Objective Trapeze is the system that is our preferred solution.

Anthony Stephenson

Group Leader for Development Management, Salford City Council.

Receiving over 2,000 planning applications per year, Salford City Council needed a tool to help them determine applications with greater efficiency. With Objective Trapeze, the team have greatly reduced manual, time-consuming tasks, and enjoy a range of purpose-built tools such as Document Comparison, which automatically highlights differences between sets of plans.

Determining 97% of applications within the statutory period last year, and with less than 2% going to appeal, Salford City Council have been able to soar through their high volume of applications without compromising on quality.

We are grateful to be a part of Salford City Council’s journey of innovation, and to have supported them in delivering a better planning service to the community. I look forward to seeing Salford’s continued success!

Want to learn more about how Objective Trapeze can help your team? Click here to book a quick discussion and demo with me.