Advice to Morag Thomson
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- From
- Morag Thomson
- Date advice given
- 25 October 2017
- Enquiry type
I thought I would give you the heads up that, as previously indicated, we will shortly be sending to you draft documentation for consideration. This will comprise the documentation identified with a “Y” in the fourth column on the attached document list. I anticipate sending the documentation during the course of next week with the exception of the Consultation Report which will follow in approximately 3 weeks’ time.
In the meantime I have an urgent query on the above scheme relating to the need for further consultation. In response to consultation responses there are some changes that we intend to make to the scheme basically comprising:
some tweaks to junction improvements which may require additional third party land;the inclusion of a lorry park within the SRFI scheme; andthe inclusion of a facility for an aggregate terminal within the rail terminal
We obviously will do a focussed consultation with the owners of any additional land required for highway works but wanted to check whether you would expect a full consultation be undertaken in respect of the second two issues. We intend to submit our application by the end of January 2017 and wish to be sure we have undertaken all necessary consultation you feel is required.
Advice given
Thanks for your correspondence provided below regarding submission of draft application documents for PINS to review.
Regarding your query on the other matters below, please be advised that the decision on whether to undertake full statutory consultation is a decision for yourselves (‘the Applicant’) to consider and dependent on whether the changes described below amount to material changes to the proposed application. If the Applicant is of the opinion that any of these changes is a material change then this indicates that a full consultation would need to be facilitated. The Applicant should also consider whether these changes have previously been consulted on as part of the preparation of the ES or adequately addressed within the ES (e.g. introduction of Lorry Park, could increase traffic movement not previously assessed). If not, then this points to a need to carry out a full statutory consultation including consultation with the relevant statutory bodies.
It should be noted that as the scoping request was submitted in December 2016, under the transitional provisions (regulation 37) in the Infrastructure Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017, the 2009 Infrastructure Planning (EIA) Regulations would normally apply. However, if the Proposed Development has altered since the version described in the Scoping Report, the 2009 EIA Regulations may no longer apply. You should satisfy yourselves that the ES has been based on the appropriate set of EIA Regulations.
We note in your correspondence below that you intend to submit a draft Consultation Report for comment within the next 3 weeks (separate from those to be received shortly), if you could provide us with a specific date that would be appreciated, so we can take this into consideration when issuing final comments on all draft documents. We would also like to draw your attention to PINS Prospectus for Applicants, regarding reviewing of draft application documents (Section 3.3)
It is note therein, that the Applicant should allow around 3 months for review of draft documents and/or as a minimum 6 weeks. Given the timing of these submission and the Applicants anticipated submission date (end January 2018), it would be useful if you could confirm whether there are any specific documents you would like us to review? We would also need to diarise a date for PINS case team to meet your project team to discuss our feedback, which we could hopefully discuss upon receipt of draft documents. Please note that owing to resource constraints we are not able to provide comments on the whole ES. We are however happy to comment on the chapter that deals with the project description and on any report relating to the Habitats Regulations.