Advice to Bill Whittle
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- From
- Bill Whittle
- Date advice given
- 15 August 2013
- Enquiry type
- Post
Please see attached letter from Mr Whittle.
Advice given
I appreciate this process can be somewhat confusing however due to requirements of the legislation and the differences between the status of parties and at what stage they submit, there a number of scenarios for how we deal with correspondence of this nature. During the process of determining an application for a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project under the Planning Act 2008 (as amended), parties who wish to become Interested Parties/make comments are required to submit a relevant representation form outlining their views concerning the proposal which the Examining Authority (ExA) then uses (along with the application documents) to identify the principal issues, these are set out in the letter of 24 July inviting parties to attend the Preliminary Meeting (PM) and are contained within Annex C.
Other than legislative requirements such as the applicant having to carry out notification and the arrangements of the PM, the next time material of this nature is (in theory) supposed to be submitted is during the first round of the timetable which is generally responses to the ExA's questions, comments on relevant representations and written representations etc. That being said, often correspondence is received from parties during the pre-examination stage and these are treated accordingly which are dependant upon whether the person is an interested party as defined by the regulations (for example yourself as you in are in part 2 category 3 of the book of reference which gives you an automatic interested party status) and the ExA's decision whether or not to exercise his discretion to accept late/additional representations.
A proposed draft examination timetable which is also set out in the letter of 24 July and contained within in Annex D, sets out the proposed deadlines for material to be received. These are what the ExA intends to set subject to any input from parties which he will take into consideration before setting the finalised timetable. Soon after the PM, the finalised timetable will be issued and all parties will be expected to adhere to these deadline so if you wish to raise any issues during the examination please ensure they are made in accordance with the timetable.
Since originally writing to you, the ExA has seen your correspondence and has decided to accept it and therefore a copy will in fact now be made publicly available. Following this, other than adhering to any of the ExA's requests for further material, you will not be required to re submit your correspondence in your email of 5 July or letter of 2 August.
I hope the above has clarified the approach taken, if you have any further queries please let me know.