Can we really have a planning application from 1946?

This is the question that Councillor David Wilcox asked at today's Economy and Skills Committee.

Simone Wilding (Head of Planning) was clearly flummoxed by this question.

the dashboard still throws mysteries at us
there is definitely data gremlins in it

I reported on this specific application in January 2026.

It seems that I know more about Bristol Planning Applications that the Head of Planning!

Anyone who has used the Bristol Planning Portal knows how awful it is.

The Councillors clearly have the same problems that residents have.

The problems with the portal are blamed on "bots and scrapers".

The Planning Department response has been to block access from outside of the UK. I assume they are specifically trying to block AI scrapers from the US and China. This is a very crude method of dealing with excessive demand.

Because the Planning Portal does not provide modern data access/export mechanisms the only way of getting the data is to scrape it.

I scrape the data from the Planning Portal to produce my Planning Reports on BU Uncovered. I do this in an ethical way, by mimicking the behaviour of a human user and not putting excessive demands on the service.

Earlier this year BCC removed all Planning Enforcement data from the system, which makes it very difficult to understand how Enforcement is actually working.

Andrew Lynch reported that Simone Wilding was leaving Bristol City Council to work in Reading.

The Committee seemed surprised that the Planning Portal was going to be replaced. This shows that the politicians don't really know what is going on with planning.

Simone Wilding's incoherent responses show that she doesn't appear to understand the Planning Portal either.