Advice to Maurice Cotton
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- From
- Maurice Cotton
- Date advice given
- 8 September 2017
- Enquiry type
Further to our last exchange there have been statutory consultations by the proposer in July and consequential feedback response. You will no doubt have been copied in by some respondents. Whilst there is now considerable awareness and resistance to the proposal by the local populace, the proposer has resisted requests to engage with the affected community or the main community representatives. As the main opposition group we have made several requests both direct and indirect - without response.
We previously made you aware of an intimidating style adopted by their land agents. There has been further incidence by the same agent of secretively posting notices requesting land ownership interest details. A number of persons within the community have suggested that they may have certain land interests. However the proposer has not responded to written requests. Copy letter attached.
Additionally we note that despite the massive size of the proposal there has been no community impact assessment made. This should be a minimum requirement for all planning applications in the "strategic" category.
Advice given
Thank you for your email. We note your concerns below. As you are aware the Applicant carried out their period of statutory consultation (‘Stage 2 Consultation’) from 5 July to 30 August 2017 which invited responses on the proposed development. The Applicant via their website http://www.westmidlandsinterchange.co.uk/stage-2-consultation/ made available copies of all Stage 2 Consultation documents for download from their Document Library. These draft documents produced by the Applicant for the proposed development are still available to review (under ‘Stage 2 Technical Documents’ tab) on their website and includes the Interim Consultation Report. If you have not already reviewed these technical documents, we would encourage you to visit the Applicants website and assess the full list available to download.
We note your concern regarding the Applicant’s Land Agents and letter issued to Four Ashes Limited on this matter. It may be useful if you contacted their Land Agents directly (BNP Paribas). Any owners, occupiers or any person with an interest in any of the Order Land associated to the West Midlands Interchange project who wish to discuss matters relating to the negotiation of agreements should contact Derry Mockett of BNP Paribas, One Redcliffe Street, Bristol, BS1 6NP (0117 98 48 424) or derry.mockett@bnpparibas.com.
If you have not already done so, we would also advise you to contact the relevant local authority to inform them of your concerns regarding the applicant’s consultation, as your views may be added to their Adequacy of Consultation report which the local authority is required to provide to us once the application has been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate (the Acceptance stage of the Planning Act 2008 planning process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs)).
To assist various interest groups, PINS has recently published to our website Frequently Asked Questions which provides information on the Pre-Application stage of the Planning Act 2008 planning process for NSIPs. The FAQ also covers matters such as the community consultation, which may be of interest to you.