Advice to Mike Thomas
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- From
- Mike Thomas
- Date advice given
- 6 June 2014
- Enquiry type
I am a resident of Lockington and I understand that there is to be a further public exhibition/consultation this month regarding this development. To date I have not received any notification of when or where this is to be held, and I cannot find any reference to it on the various Roxhill websites. So this lack of publicity is inadequate to ensure that local people are aware of this opportunity to attend this exhibition. I look forward to receiving your comments
Advice given
The East Midlands Gateway Rail Freight Interchange scheme is currently at the ?pre-application? stage of the Planning Act 2008 (as amended) (PA 2008) process.
At this stage of the process the developer should be your first point of contact as it is their responsibility for advertising and carrying out the consultation. We would therefore recommend that you refer to the developer?s website for information on how to contact them and raise any concerns you may have. The developer?s project website page describes how they are carrying out their consultation at http://www.eastmidlandsgateway.co.uk/consultation.php and also shows where the documents can be seen and how comments can be made.
Prior to submitting an application to the Planning Inspectorate, the developer is required to carry out extensive consultation on their proposals. This involves providing information about the proposal to various statutory and non-statutory bodies and the wider community, responding to questions, listening to suggestions, and taking these into account to influence and inform the application ultimately submitted to the Inspectorate. This does not mean that the developer has to accept or agree with every comment or suggestion made but they must give them proper consideration.
Before formally consulting people in the vicinity of the project, the developer must prepare a Statement of Community Consultation (SoCC), having first consulted relevant local authorities about what it should contain. The purpose of the SoCC is to provide details on the consultation process, which the developer intends to undertake with the local community about their project. The developer is then required to carry out their consultation with the local community as set out in the SoCC.
A link to the SoCC can be found on the application documentation page of the developer?s project website at http://www.eastmidlandsgateway.co.uk/documentation.php
Where any person feels that an applicant's pre-application consultation was inadequately carried out, they should seek resolution by approaching the applicant in the first instance. If following this action you remain unsatisfied with the consultation carried out, you may also wish to raise this with the relevant local authority.
Subsequently, when an application is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate following the pre-application stage, there is a 28 day period during which a decision is taken on whether to accept the application for examination. One of the factors to be considered by the Planning Inspectorate at this stage is whether or not the developer?s consultation process has been adequate, and we will invite relevant local authorities to provide us with their comments on the adequacy of the applicant?s consultation. In providing their representation on this matter, the local authority may decide to take into account any comments received from the public on this issue. The Inspectorate, on behalf of the Secretary of State, must have regard to the local authority?s response on the adequacy of consultation in making its decision on whether to accept an application to proceed to be examined.
If the application is accepted for examination, there will be the opportunity to register your views with the Planning Inspectorate and participate in the examination by completing a relevant representation form. Where a person believes they have identified an issue which has not been adequately addressed by the applicant, despite raising it with them as part of their pre-application consultation, they may wish to include this as part of their representation. Relevant representations are used by the Examining Authority to help identify the initial principal issues for examination.
Details about how and when to register will be publicised by the developer in local newspapers and on site notices. Please note that you are unable to register as an interested party during the current (pre-application) stage of the process for this proposal.
The Planning Inspectorate has produced several advice notes to help provide an overview of the PA 2008 process and the opportunities to get involved. These are available via the link below. In this instance I recommend reviewing advice note eight series ? ?How to get involved in the planning process?. I have attached above PDF versions for your reference. You may also access these documents on our website at the following link:
http://infrastructure.planningportal.gov.uk/legislation-and-advice/advice-notes/
You may also find the following guidance and advice note helpful:
Guidance on the Pre-Application Process (The Planning Act 2008): https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/49468/Planning_Act_2008_pre-applications.pdf
Advice note sixteen: The developer?s pre-application consultation, publicity and notification duties: http://infrastructure.planningportal.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Advice-note-16.pdf