Planning Applications Face Delays Following Cyber Incident

Planning applications are experiencing hold-ups as a local authority recovers from a cyber event. Tewkesbury Borough Council suspended all of its digital services on September 4 after detecting a problem with its IT systems, before resuming operations on September 24 based on the guidance of cyber security specialists. In a report, the council stated that the new backlog primarily comprises “cases which would otherwise have been determined within their statutory determination period” but now risk expiring before they can be processed. The authority is working to optimize its procedures to clear the outstanding applications and ensure that fewer submissions are advanced to the committee stage. Prior to the incident, the council had an estimated 238 pending applications, mainly consisting of those “held up for planning reasons such as amendments.” They project the new total will increase to approximately 390, which the council believes will add to “existing pressures on officer workloads and impact the customer experience.” The council shut down its internal IT services and declared a major incident after unauthorized user accounts were discovered on its systems. While it was initially feared that this indicated an external attack, this was subsequently disproven, and experts have confirmed that all IT systems are secure and that no personal data was lost as a result of the incident. No other districts were affected by these issues.