Advice to Nick Burton
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- From
- Nick Burton
- Date advice given
- 6 June 2014
- Enquiry type
I wish to complain about the completely inadequate publication of dates and venues for public consultation on the Roxhill East Midlands Gateway Project. First of all I missed the first round of consultation completely as I only found out about it via a FaceBook contact a week after the consultation had closed and then I find out about the second consultation only a day before the final Exhibition which I believe is at Lockington Hall tomorrow evening. Again I found out about this via a friend at the weekend and I am probably not going to be able to attend due to meetings I have with work several hundred miles away from home. Why am I only finding out about this now? Apparently I should have had several leaflets through my door but have received none, nor have most of my friends and neighbours in Hemington and Lockington! This is COMPLETELY unacceptable. You are able to design and propose a multi-million pound development covering a very large part of the rural area I live in and yet it seems your team finds it difficult to properly consult with the local communities it is going to effect, why is this?
This is not good enough. I wish to look at your plans in detail and yet for some reason this also seems difficult. Can you please send me all of your detailed plans (I don?t mean the low quality sanitised schematics on the Roxhill website) ? I assume they are publicly available for all who wish to see them, regardless of the difficulty there seems in obtaining them without attending the exhibitions that only a few people get to find out about.
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 and it is recommended that you refer to the developer?s website for information on how to contact them. The developer?s project website page describes how they are carrying out their consultation at http://www.eastmidlandsgateway.co.uk/consultation.php and also lists where the documents can be seen and how comments can be made. The page also has links to the consultation leaflet and exhibition boards.
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. 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