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Advice to James Chappell

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Enquiry

From
James Chappell
Date advice given
4 June 2018
Enquiry type
Email

In reply to an enquiry by Nigel Phethean (24 May 2018) you said: “Any delay in the publishing of the note from the meeting with RSP on 11 May 2018 is a result of the drafting and finalisation process. The note will be published to the Manston Airport project webpage as soon as practicable after finalisation.”

In reply to an enquiry by me (James Chappell 18 May 2018) you said: “There was no particular reason why there was a delay in publishing it [Feb 23 Meeting Note]. We aim to publish the note of the meeting held with the Applicant on 11 May 2018 asap”

My I observe that the statement “There was no particular reason why there was a delay...” is facile in the extreme. Given that expressions such as “asap” and “as soon as practicable” are meaningless, will the Inspectorate commit to publishing Meeting Notes and other s51 advice within a definite time scale? For an example, an upper bound of 10 working days?

If, for some operational reason, it is quite impossible for the PI to undertake the publishing of key documents to a timetable, then will the PI adopt some sort of process to alert interested parties to the fact that a historical document has been published? This would take away the need for readers having to trawl up and down through 30 pages and 300+ entries, trying to see if something new (or, indeed, old) had been published.

Advice given

We understand that the content of our meeting notes is important to persons with an interest in particular applications. However, whilst we endeavour to publish meeting notes as soon as practicable, the Planning Inspectorate is responsible for meeting statutory deadlines in other areas of its work under the Planning Act 2008, which must be prioritised.

There is currently no functionality for users of the website to be updated in respect of the publication of meeting notes (or other s51 advice) in the manner suggested. We will however consider this suggestion as we continue to improve the website in future.