Changes to planning service on Skye

The Highland Council is eager to improve the service it provides to customers with planning and building standards enquiries by channelling routine enquiries via its Service Points and Service Centre.

Following on from the successful trial of this approach in the Ross & Cromarty and Sutherland areas, from Monday (14th May) the approach will be rolled out to the Skye Planning and Building Standards area and will coincide with the move of the Portree Planning and Building Standards Office to Tigh-na-sgire, Park Lane, Portree.

The Council believes this will not only help the public by improving customer service and efficiency but will free up the time of specialist staff to focus on processing current and pending planning and building standards cases.
The new approach has been trialled at the Council’s Area Planning Offices in Dingwall and Golspie to ensure that the approach works well for both council customers and staff prior to the roll out across further areas.

Stuart Black, Director of The Highland Council’s Planning and Development Service said: “Research has shown that the majority of first time enquiries to planning and building standards offices are simple requests for forms, support in the application process or progress updates on pending applications.  We believe these types of enquiries can be dealt with more efficiently and effectively via the Customer Services Network, leaving the specialists in the service to deal with current and pending cases.”

Customers on Skye will now be able to book an appointment by telephoning 01349 886608 if they require a meeting with a Planner or Building Standards Surveyor in their area office.  For on-going applications, existing customers will still be able to liaise with their case officer via email, telephone and booking an appointment to see them. Customer Services advisors have been provided with training to ensure that they have the appropriate knowledge to deal with enquiries over the phone and at Service Points.

A ‘Duty Officer’ will also be available to deal with more complex enquiries or book an appointment with the relevant case officer.  Customer and staff surveys will be used to gauge the success of the pilot over the coming months.

The next area this new service will be rolled out to is Inverness.