The Town and Country Development Planning Office will be accepting plans electronically from Tuesday, April 2.

This disclosure has come from Programme Analyst at that Government department, Kurtis Best, who said applicants would no longer be required to take in the standard six paper plans.

Mr. Best continued: "They will now be able to bring in the plan on CD or DVD and three paper copies. Applicants must submit e-plans in PDF format, either scanned from the original paper plan or as a digital conversion to PDF from CAD tool."

He further explained that the file size should not be greater than five megabytes, but pointed out that bigger file sizes may be accepted for larger applications. He added that applicants should ensure the e-plan size corresponds with the printed document’s dimensions and that each plan should be on a separate page.

However, the Programme Analyst stressed that the department was not making it mandatory for applicants to submit their plans electronically. "We will still be taking the paper copies, but we do prefer them to be sent electronically because that helps to speed up things for us and the other Government agencies," he stated.

Emphasising that a number of benefits would be derived as a result of the e-plan initiative, he said: "We realise that we do utilise a lot of paper within the office and we send out a lot of information in paper format to our agencies. This has always made the application process a bit longer because we have to send a duplicate of the application to the respective government agency for comment.??

"This new e-plan initiative will speed up the transaction and communication between Government and non-governmental agencies…"

Mr. Best pointed out that over the years some of Town Planning’s stakeholders had expressed a desire for the department to go in this direction. "The delivery of the planning service will become more efficient with the electronic submissions," he opined.

Applicants will not be allowed to submit plans on a flash drive.

sharon.austingill-moore@barbados.gov.bb

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