Changes have been made to the Planning Duty Service to make it easier to talk to and contact the Planning Team at East Cambridgeshire District Council.

From this week (Monday 19 January), the General Enquiries Service is now available via 01353 665555 at the following times: Monday - Thursday 8:45am - 5pm and Friday 8:45am - 4:30pm.

The planning pages have also been enhanced to make it easier to access information on a variety of topics including Building Control, heritage, trees, Local Plan and much more at www.eastcambs.gov.uk/environment-planning/welcome-environment-planning.

There is also wealth of information from planning forms and guidance to information on flood risk, pre-applications, heritage statements, ecology & biodiversity and the Planning Committee.

For Planning Agents there will also be an Agents Forum on Wednesday 28 January starting at 3pm at the Council offices on Nutholt Lane, Ely. Agents who would like to attend should email angela.clarke@eastcambs.gov.uk to secure a place.

Jo Brooks, Director (Regulatory Services) at East Cambridgeshire District Council, said: "We want to make our Planning service as user friendly as possible. This is why we have introduced a new General Enquiries Service to hopefully deal with general queries straight away and also redesigned the planning pages on the Council's website. We hope these changes will make a real difference and help make planning open to everyone but if there is anything more you think we could do then please get in touch."

The new phone service is there to provide general planning advice - should anyone require site specific advice they should go through the Council's pre-application advice service to discuss specific proposals.