Virtual Site Visits
Lock down implications
The Covid-19 pandemic has produced a number of new challenges across the planning world. The nationwide lockdown meant that provisions of the Local Government Act of 1972 which required members of a planning committee to be physically present at meetings would have frozen all progress in the sector unless new legislation was passed.
In the UK emergency legislation was enacted allowing the Secretary of State to make regulations allowing ‘non present’ members to vote on local authority meetings.
The next challenge is posed by the data needed to be raised and presented for planning applications. In the online PlanTech Forum, held 03/04/2020, consultants highlighted that certain data cannot be raised any more. Noise, traffic, pollution, and even biological data no longer provided a baseline compared to how things were beforehand. We assume these values will return once restrictions ease.
Site visits of course are also affected as we have to not only curtail non-essential travel but also observe physical distancing.
How can we help?
As visualisation specialists we have been addressing a lot of these challenges long before Covid disrupted our daily lives. We already understand the importance of delivering clear and accurate visual information on the aesthetics of a scheme online.
Our photography is a solitary pursuit, so we are still able to safely visit and record sites allowing online planning consultations to continue with us providing virtual site visits. Each view can be captured conventionally with standard photography as prescribed by the LVMF documentation. And/or we can capture views in 360 degree photography giving a holistic picture of each location.
Our drones are still flying too so aerial overviews can be captured and integrated into online presentations in much the same way as eye evel photography, with the option for 360 or conventional images.
Proposed schemes can then be either added as mass or detail and consentend cumulatives can be added, all of which can then be shared and discussed via a web portal from the comfort, or more importantly, the safety of home.
In the following example you will find a multi location AVR application for Millharbour. Each view has the existing, detail and consented cumulative options along with a number of themore sensitive locations in 360.
