Sid Ryan wanted to see if planning applications near planning committee members were more or less likely to be accepted. Here’s the first part of how he did it (a second part – on researching people – here):

While researching Hammersmith and Fulham councillors’ registers of interest for a feature, I began looking into the council’s planning applications database.

By joining up the council’s data and presenting it on a simple map I could show the building hotspots and make accessing public data much easier, even if I didn’t find the undue influence by councillors I was looking for.

Below is a guide to making the map itself, and another post to follow will go through adding the councillors details and researching them using public records. Continue reading →