Frustrations. Work arounds. Home working issues.

For the last couple of years, hundreds of planning and building officers from councils in the UK, Australia and New Zealand have shared with me their reality of plan assessment. “We need to be fast, but accuracy is even more important, so this is superb,” a Building Control Officer from New Zealand once told me.

But these honest conversations often feel like confessions.

“It’s quite possible I’ve missed changes in between amendments in the past,” an English Planning Officer has recently told me. “While assessing applications from home, I sometimes found myself holding a protractor against the screen,” another one said.

That’s why we’re on a mission to make these ‘confessions’ a thing from the past.

Join us at the Planning Portal Virtual Conference 2020 as we uncover how technology offers a way to overcome modern challenges, without leaving a guilty conscience.


A compare the pair headache

One example is detecting every change between two sets of plans. Not only is this time-consuming, it’s almost impossible.

“Rather than spending hours scouring over plans trying to spot any sneaky changes, I now have the confidence of identifying what’s changed and what hasn’t – in seconds,” a Senior Planner said.

The automated pixel-by-pixel analysis in Trapeze Professional doesn’t miss a single thing.

Think you can spot everything too? Try our interactive ‘Spot the Difference’ challenge.

Inspired by the usual approach of reviewing plans side by side, the simulation presents you with 30 differences to see how many you (or your colleagues) can find. Give it your best shot, as you could also win a free subscription to Trapeze Professional for your organisation.*

Results will be shared during the Planning Portal Virtual Conference.


Be our guest – join the conversation online

The Planning Portal Virtual Conference 2020 takes place 16-19 November, with the Objective Trapeze session ‘Confessions of a Planning and Building Officer’ on Wednesday, 18 November at 10:15am (GMT). For more information and to register, please visit the Conference website.

Alternatively, if you'd like more information about Objective Trapeze and a link to the recorded session once available, please email the team at trapeze@objective.com.

* Terms and conditions apply.