Edinburgh City Council has been forced to re-advertise 94 planning applications after they failed to display online following an IT upgrade carried out in November 2018.

The glitching system processes planning applications and building warrant applications. Planners said the upgrade had been successfully completed, but due to a ‘technical problem’, not all documents were displaying properly.

A spokesperson for the council said they have contacted all those affected including applicants, and community councils to notify them of the problems and to issue an apology.

In addition, those wishing to view and comment on applicants could not do so. Legally, the council is obliged to provide members of the public with a 21-day window to comment on planning applications. Due to the error, officers were forced to cancel a development management sub-committee meeting in November.

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David Leslie, chief planning officer, wrote in a letter to councillors: “In order to meet statutory requirements for public comment, we need to re-notify neighbours, re-advertise and erect new site notices for affected applications.

“This will ensure that those wishing to comment on applications can view all the relevant information and have the required 21 days to submit representations.

“We will be contacting all applicants affected by this issue to explain the situation and apologise for the delay in determining their application. We will also be writing to all community councils.”

Members of the opposition have voiced dissatisfaction with the authority’s IT problems, attacking the council’s planning system and general management.

Liberal Democrat councillor Kevin Lang said: “It’s ironic that poor planning appears to have caused serious problems in, of all areas, the council’s planning system.

“This IT change was designed to improve the online portal. Instead, it has ended up delaying almost 100 planning applications across the city…The council already had a reputation for being slow in dealing with planning applications. These latest issues will do nothing to rebuild confidence amongst applicants or local communities.”

Conservative councillor Jo Mowat said: “I’m aware it was a new computer system but it puts more burden on a service which is struggling.

“General management seems to be a problem in the council. There’s too much in that department that’s still waiting to be resolved – it just seems to struggle with the day-to-day running.”