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Advice to P Fletcher

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Enquiry

From
P Fletcher
Date advice given
13 October 2011
Enquiry type
Phone

Ms Fletcher requested general information on the IPC process.

Advice given

Dear Ms Fletcher,

Thank you for your email dated 5 October 2011. I hope that the following information answers your questions about the IPC process:

What governs the end day of the Acceptance Stage - the issue of a formal decision by IPC?

Under s.55(2) of the Planning Act 2008 (the PA2008) a decision to accept or refuse to accept an application for development consent must be made within 28 calendar days. The 28 days begins the day after the day on which the IPC received the application. The Commission must then notify the applicant of the decision

What governs the start day of the Pre-Exam Stage - the publicizing (of IPC acceptance) by the developer?

The pre-examination stage starts once the IPC has made the decision to accept an application. If a decision not to accept the application has been made, the application will not move into the pre-examination stage. The pre-examination stage is not a formal period defined in legislation. It is the time period between a decision to accept an application and the start of the Examination, and it may vary in length from application to application.

Section 56 of the PA 2008 and Regulation 8 of The Infrastructure Planning (Applications: Prescribed Forms and Procedure) Regulations 2009 (see link below) detail the responsibilities of the applicant in publicising the acceptance decision made by the IPC. If accepted, the applicant must publicise the acceptance of the application in the prescribed manner (such as publishing local newspaper adverts), and set a deadline of at least 28 days for receipt by the Commission of representations. If these representations are made in the prescribed form, then they are called ‘relevant representations’, and (unless a party is automatically an interested party under s.102(1) of the PA2008) submitting them registers a person as an interested party.

IPC states that the Pre-Exam Stage is "approximately 3 months" What governs the end day and how will the public know? How will they find out if they are not on-line?

The pre-examination stage closes and the examination stage begins on the day of the preliminary meeting or if held over two or more days, the latest of those days. This is known as the ‘start day’ (s.98(2) PA 2008). Those persons who registered with the IPC during the registration period and those already deemed as interested parties will be kept informed throughout the whole process of any procedural decisions made, by their preferred means of either post or email. This is required by Rule 9 of The Infrastructure Planning (Examination Procedure) Rules 2010.

Registration - when is the earliest day that the public are able to register - is it day 1 of the Pre-Exam Stage?

A relevant representation can be submitted once the acceptance of an application has been publicised by the applicant along with a notification of the representation period and deadline. I have included a link to our Advice Note 8.3 'How to register and make a relevant representation' for further information - http://infrastructure.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Advice-note-8.3-web.pdf

Is there a minimum or maximum length of days for the Pre-Exam Stage?

There is no minimum or maximum period, although we estimate that it may take approximately three months. However this depends on when the applicant chooses to publicise the accepted application setting the deadline for relevant representations, and the length of that representation period.

Is the Examination Stage 6 months dead or is there a maximum or minimum length? If it is not 6 months dead, what governs the end day?

Under section 98(1) of the PA 2008 the Examining authority is under a duty to complete the examination of an application by the end of the period of 6 months beginning with the day after the start day. This is a maximum; the examination could take less time.

When the Examining authority has completed its examination of an application it must inform each of the interested parties of this fact (s.99 PA 2008). Although there is a power under s.98(4) of the PA 2008 to extend the examination stage beyond 6 months, the Chair of the IPC is unlikely to use this power other than on rare occasions.

I have included links below to some of the legislation I have mentioned:

The Planning Act 2008 - http://infrastructure.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ukpga_20080029_en.pdf

The Infrastructure Planning (Examination Procedure) Rules 2010 - http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/103/pdfs/uksi_20100103_en.pdf

The other legislation referred to above is also available from the Legislation and Advice pages of our website.

I trust that this response answers all your questions, but do please let me know if you have any further queries in this regard.

Yours,

Jeffrey Penfold