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Advice to Maxwell Rathmell (Leeds City Council)

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Enquiry

From
Maxwell Rathmell (Leeds City Council)
Date advice given
17 October 2013
Enquiry type
Email

Email rgarding adequacy of consultation.

Advice given

Thank you for your email received 16 October 2013.

We appreciate being informed of your views.

Our role as an organisation is to examine major Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) on behalf of the Secretary of State under the Planning Act 2008 process (as amended).

As you may be aware from my previous correspondence, we received an application for the proposed Knottingley Power Station in West Yorkshire by Knottingley Power Limited. Before formally submitting the application to the Secretary of State for consideration, the applicant must consult all identified relevant local authorities. Local authorities play a vital role during the pre-application consultation.

As a part of the Planning Act 2008 process, we are under duty to ensure that the pre-application consultation was carried out adequately. We would therefore like to invite all the identified relevant local authorities to provide us with their views on consultation carried out by the applicant.

Leeds City Council was identified as a relevant local authority because it shares a boundary with the local authority in which the proposed development is to be situated. We have 28 days to decide whether the application should proceed for examination. Before deciding on the application we must have regard to all adequacy of consultation comments received.

We therefore are taking the opportunity to invite all local authorities to confirm whether or not they are satisfied that consultation was carried out adequately. In addition, the applicant must comply with the following duties of the PA 2008:

Duty to consult (Section 42 of the PA 2008); Duty to consult the local community (Section 47 of the Pa 2008); Duty to publicise (Section 48 of the PA 2008) The consultation under PA 2008 is carried out to ensure that everyone had an equal opportunity to be involved in the process.

We appreciate however that you may not wish to make an adequacy of consultation representation. If so, it would assist if you could reply in those terms

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.