Advice to ESBI Investments
Back to listEnquiry
- From
- ESBI Investments
- Date advice given
- 26 January 2012
- Enquiry type
Query regarding S.47 consultation with the LPA on the SOCC as to what requirement there is to submit Preliminary Environmental information as part of the 28 day consultation.
Enquirer expects that when submitting the SOCC to the LPA they will have only high level environmental information available and asks if it will be acceptable to submit the SOCC without detailed Environmental information.
Advice given
There are no specific requirements on how much environmental information should be given to local authorities to enable them to comment on the draft SoCC. s47(2) of the PA2008 requires developers to consult with local authorities within s43(1) about what is to be included in their SoCC and the SoCC needs to state how the Preliminary Environmental Information (PEI) is to be consulted upon (Reg 10 of the EIA Regulations 2009). At this stage, the local authority is not expected to provide a view on the project itself, only on how the developer should go about consulting people in its area. However, the level of detail in the information that's provided may have a bearing on the ability of the authority to give meaningful comment. For example, a more detailed PEI may enable it to identify particular groups or localities who may wish to be consulted. Please refer to CLG guidance (link below) for more information.
Ultimately, it is upto the developer to decide what level of information to provide the local authority, at what stage in the scheme to commence statutory pre-application consultation and at which point it is felt consultation will be most effective. To help with these considerations the developer may wish to discuss this issue directly with the relevant 'B' local authorities in advance of formal consultation.The developer may also wish to discuss the timing of s.42 and s.47 stages of consultation as this may have a bearing on the level of detail to provide within the PEI.
Key legislation and guidance on the preparation and content of SoCC are set out below with the appropriate links:
IPC Guidance Note 1 pre-application stages (Chapter 2 of the Planning Act) revision 2
CLG Guidance for pre-application Consultation (paragraphs 41-47)
http://infrastructure.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/guidancepreapplication.pdf
It may also be useful looking at SoCCs published for other NSIP projects to see how other developers have approached the issue. These can be found on the project pages of our website, for applications accepted for examination