Advice to Peter Binding
Back to listEnquiry
- From
- Peter Binding
- Date advice given
- 27 March 2018
- Enquiry type
Do you routinely accept submissions from people using fake identities and, if not why have you done so on this occasion?
Do you believe that accepting and publishing submissions from people using fake names is consistent with your claims about the transparency of the DCO process?
Is your decision to publish notice of Appolonius's submission tacit recognition that the entire DCO process is a joke; this is just your way of joining in with the "fun."
Advice given
For the record, the advice given to Appolonius Claudius was provided in response to a consultation response objecting to the Proposed Development at the Manston Airport site in the strongest terms.
Section 51 of the Planning Act 2008 (PA2008) is not prescriptive about who the Planning Inspectorate can issue advice to. There is no prescribed form for the submission of a request for Pre-application advice, but the Planning Inspectorate must, amongst other things, make a record of who requested the advice and the matters in respect of which the advice was requested.
At the Pre-examination stage of the process, Relevant Representations must be made in the prescribed form, providing details of the name, address and telephone number of the person making the representation. Representations that are vexatious or frivolous or concerned with matters of national policy or compensation for Compulsory Acquisition may be disregarded by an Examining Authority (ExA).
The inquisitorial nature of the PA2008 process means that ExAs examine evidence through questioning. In the examination process, it is the relevance and importance of the issues which carry weight – not the volume of submissions received. On that basis duplicated representations (in support or objection to a Proposed Development) cannot serve to manipulate the decision-making process.