1. Section 51 advice
  2. Advice in detail

Advice to Graveney Rural Environment Action Team

Back to list

Enquiry

From
Graveney Rural Environment Action Team
Date advice given
13 November 2018
Enquiry type
Email

Please see attached

Advice given

Dear Mr Wilcox,

Thank you for your email and attached letter of 10 October 2018. Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying.

As explained in our previous reply to you of 13 July 2018 as the project has not yet been submitted to the Inspectorate, the Inspectorate has no formal powers to intervene on consultees’ behalf and we are therefore not in a position to supervise the statutory consultation process conducted by the Applicant.

As you have raised concerns over the Applicant’s consultation, and as the Inspectorate advised previously, if you have not already done so, write to your local authority and set out why you think the Applicant is failing/or has failed to conduct is consultation properly. Your comments sent to local authorities should be considered when they provide Adequacy of Consultation responses to the Inspectorate on whether the Applicant has fulfilled its consultation duties. The local authority’s comments on the Applicant’s consultation will be taken into account when the Examining Inspectors makes his/her decision whether to accept the Application for examination.

The Inspectorate can also consider your comments in addition to the statutorily required Acceptance tests when making the decision about whether or not to accept the application under section 55 of the Planning Act 2008. It will be for the decision maker (the Inspectorate on behalf of the Secretary of State) to decide the weight to give to the views expressed in your comments based on the individual facts of the case.

If the application is accepted for examination you will have the opportunity to make representations about the merits of the application to an appointed Examining Authority at the appropriate time.

For information, please see link below to Advice Note 8 which sets out an overview of the nationally significant infrastructure planning process for members of the public and others. https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Advice-note-8.0.pdf.

We understand that the application is due to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate on Friday 16 November 2018.

Please note, in accordance with Section 51 of the PA2008, a summary of your query and our advice will be published on the project’s webpage of the National Infrastructure Website.

Thank you

Attachments

View advice (PDF)