April 30, 2014 -- Parish Online, the easy-to-use cloud-based mapping system, is now available for every Town and Parish Council within West Sussex. In a three year partnership with Getmapping, West Sussex County Council is sharing its definitive GIS data as well as providing this unique mapping tool to help Local Councils carry out their devolved responsibilities.

Key geographic datasets such as tree ownership, gully locations and a variety of highways maintenance layers gives Clerks and Councillors greater visibility of their local infrastructure enabling them to better plan, commission and carry out local improvement works.

Parish Online includes a variety of searching, printing and editing tools which can also be used to help Local Councils develop their Neighbourhood Plans, plot and account for their physical assets, consult on planning applications, assess insurance risk and record surface water issues.

Duncan Barratt, Community and Economic Development Manager from West Sussex County Council explains the benefits of the new partnership, “As our Local Councils gain more responsibility it’s important to ensure they have the right tools for the job. Digital mapping is a powerful aid and can assist them by providing location intelligence and a unified view from the County Council across to the Town and Parish. By using Getmapping’s cloud-based technology, access to this information is easy, consistent and cost-effective. All this enables informed decision-making which is in line with our ultimate aim to make the towns and villages in West Sussex great places to live and work.”

“We understand that Clerks and Councillors do not have the time to spend days learning a new piece of specialist software,” said Chris Mewse, GIS Product Manager at Getmapping. “This is why we’ve designed Parish Online to be simple to use. Getmapping takes care of the rest carrying out all the maintenance of the software over the web. This means the users can get on with the important tasks they need to do. We find it only takes minutes for a new user to start creating maps and it’s great to see their enthusiasm and intrigue as they discover new pieces of information about their local area. We look forward to seeing the new and interesting ways Local Councils in Sussex take advantage of their new digital mapping.”

www.getmapping.com/gis/parish-online