Cheshire East's 'upgraded' planning portal has come under fire again with one councillor requesting the council return to publishing weekly lists for ward members 'until we sort this mess'.

The council switched to a new system a few weeks ago and there were numerous complaints from residents and councillors after some were unable to comment on applications or view documents online.

Mobberley Parish Council, which acts as a consultee on applications in its area, reported last month it hadn't been unable to determine its response to proposals at its planning meeting because members couldn't view the documents.

At yesterday's (Thursday) meeting of the audit and governance committee, Odd Rode councillor Patrick Redstone (Con) said there were still issues with the planning portal and asked when the matter was going to be resolved.

"I understand that you are suffering teething problems with regard to your software, but what my residents and what users of the system want to know is, when will this be fixed?" he asked.

Tom Shuttleworth, interim director of environment and neighbourhood Services, said: "We are continuing to work with the supplier over the course of the next couple of months in relation to addressing those issues as things have gone live.

"There's no set end date on that at the moment."

He said applications were being published on the portal for residents to see.

Disley councillor Sue Adams (Con) said: "Can I make a request please that until we sort all this mess – the problems with the new planning software – can we reinstate the weekly list for ward members?

"I think it would make the life of town and parish councillors and ward members a lot easier.

"We won't be missing planning applications for our ward."

Later in the meeting, when the committee was discussing the annual governance statement (AGS), it was recommended from officers that planning be removed from the AGS and that future monitoring of compliance be undertaken by the executive director of place, 'as there has been significant progress in this area'.

Councillors didn't agree, because of the issues with the new planning software, and said it required further monitoring via the annual governance statement, so councillors still had oversight.