Around half of Britain’s population are unaware of forthcoming planning applications or road closures in their area, research by Haringey Council has revealed. Haringey’s ground-breaking new free neighbourhood alerts mobile phone app bids to tackle this by ensuring the borough’s residents are first to hear about issues they need to know about. ‘Haringey Notiz’, launched in June as part of a government pilot with newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror, has already been downloaded by nearly 1,500 Haringey residents.

Once downloaded, people automatically receive notifications about matters relevant within 50-500 metres of where they live, including planning applications, highways works and licensing applications.

The range of uses is expected to be expanded shortly to also include information on local events, community safety, school closures and bin collection information.

Councillor Ali Demirci, Cabinet Member for Planning, said:

“We want our residents to be as fully engaged as possible in the planning process and this is a fantastic tool for keeping in touch with what is happening in your neighbourhood.”

The government chose Haringey to be part of a national pilot to look at new ways of communicating information that is currently held in public notices, which are printed every week in local newspapers.

A national survey by Haringey revealed that just four percent of the population read public notices in newspapers and that 48 percent of people have no warning about road closures and 51 percent only hear about a planning application once it has been approved or when building work starts.

The cost of the pilot – being led by Haringey along with councils in Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Redcar & Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees and Hammersmith & Fulham – has been met by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

In user testing, 83 percent of people said they were satisfied with the app and 78 percent said it would now be their primary source of information.

Haringey intends to make the app a permanent feature and to extend its use to a variety of uses across the borough.

To download the app free of charge, search for ‘Haringey Notiz’ in your mobile phone market place.