Advice to Matt Parkinson
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- From
- Matt Parkinson
- Date advice given
- 23 May 2013
- Enquiry type
E-mail received by the Planning Inspectorate from Matt Parkinson below:
I am a local resident living near to the proposed A556 bypass. I believe that the scheme has progressed to the next stage in the planning process. At first this surprised me because the consultation process was wholly inadequate and unfair. However, a senior figure at the Environment Agency has just told me that if a project is in the Governments' top 50 infrastructure schemes then the NID will simply just 'nod' the scheme through irrespective of whether the consultation was adequate or fair; or even on the merits of the scheme. Is this true?
Advice given
As you referred to in your e-mail, the proposed A556 Knutsford to Bowdon scheme was accepted for examination by the Planning Inspectorate on 17 May 2013.
Please be assured that a decision was made in accordance with section 55 of the Planning Act 2008 (as amended) which included having regard to the consultation report and taking into account responses to the adequacy of consultation. The section 55 checklist which is used during the decision making as to whether an application is fit to progress to examination contains the reasoning and comments on acceptance and is publicly available at the following link:
The Planning Inspectorate is impartial and ensures processes are strictly adhered to and the material from both pre application and acceptance period was taken into consideration when reaching a decision to accept this application for examination. You will shortly have an opportunity to submit a relevant representation which will be made available to the Examining authority once they are appointed. Our advice notes explain how and when you can get involved in the process and in particular, advice note 8 will be of particular interest to you, I have included a link for ease:
http://infrastructure.planningportal.gov.uk/legislation-and-advice/advice-notes/