Advice to Anthony Trollope-Bellew
Back to listEnquiry
- From
- Anthony Trollope-Bellew
- Date advice given
- 27 September 2010
- Enquiry type
Are the IPC able to require a promoter to undertake a further stage of consultation?
Advice given
The commission cannot compel a promoter to undertake a further stage of consultation. It is essential to the IPC's impartiality that we refrain from commenting directly on the form or content of the consultation exercise. As the legislation and guidance sets out, this is for the applicant to determine in consultation with the relevant local authorities and publish in their Statement of Community Consultation. The IPC will consider questions of adequacy only once the application has been submitted.
We can, however, reiterate and emphasise the requirements and duties set out in the legislation and guidance. We have recently had a meeting with EdF on this very topic, and the notes are due to be published shortly. The duty to consult is partly to help promoters develop a complete application that is ready to be examined and determined without significant alterations during the examination. In the meeting, we emphasised that EdF ought to keep this in mind when deciding on whether or not to undertake a further round of consultation. In general, the advice to promoters is that it is in their interest to take advantage of the pre application stage to agree and negotiate issues with consultees to minimise the number of issues that would otherwise need to be considered at the examination stage. If the application is accepted for examination and a significant area of disagreement remains between the applicant and a consultee on a matter of acknolwedged importance, this increases the risk and level of uncertainty for the applicant, that the application may be refused development consent.