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Advice to David Hodcroft

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Enquiry

From
David Hodcroft
Date advice given
22 November 2011
Enquiry type
Email

To whom it may concern, can you possibly help, I am trying to gather information on the number and type of applications to the IPC where Local Authorities in Greater Manchester have been consulted since 2008. If possible could you provide a list of the number of applications, the type of application and the district within Greater Manchester that was consulted?

Advice given

Thank you for your email requesting information on the number and type of applications to the IPC where Local Authorities in Greater Manchester have been consulted since 2008.

As you are aware, the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) is currently the body that examines applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs). The Localism Act 2011 contains provisions (yet to be brought into force) for the abolition of the IPC, after which its functions will be carried out by the Secretary of State. The 2011 Act makes some changes to the Planning Act 2008 (‘the 2008 Act’). The following advice relates to the present 2008 Act regime, under which the IPC operates.

There are currently 12 NSIP proposals in the North West of England that may involve consultation with one or more Local Authorities in Greater Manchester.

All 12 of these NSIPs are currently at ‘pre-application’ stage. The stage of the process at which the proposal is has a direct bearing on how much information on consultation we can provide, as the following will clarify.

Under the 2008 Act regime, it is important to set out the distinction between the consultation that the IPC is required to carry out in relation to an applicant's request for a scoping opinion and the consultation that the applicant is required to carry out at the pre-application stage.

The Applicant's Pre-application Consultation and Publicity

The process set out in the 2008 Act is heavily front-loaded, and requires the developer to undertake pre-application publicity and consultation, including direct consultation with a prescribed list of consultees and publication of advertisements in national and local newspapers.

Prior to undertaking consultation with the local community, the applicant is required to prepare a Statement of Community Consultation (SoCC), setting out how they are going to carry out their consultation. Before preparing the SoCC the applicant must give the relevant local authority a minimum of 28 days to comment. Having taken into account the comments of the local authority, the applicant must prepare and then publish the SoCC.

The applicant must then consult the local community in accordance with the SoCC. The applicant must have regard to the views expressed in response to the consultation in shaping its application.

The proposal to make the application must also be given publicity in accordance with Regulation 4 of the APFP Regulations, and the applicant must submit a Consultation Report with their application to the IPC. That report will give details of the consultation and publicity undertaken, the responses to it, and what has been done by the applicant to take account of those responses.

In regards to your query; although consultation may have begun for the various proposals (which may include Local Authorities in Greater Manchester), as all relevant proposals are at ‘pre-application’ stage, and in the absence of the consultation report, we can not confirm which applicants will or have consulted with Local Authorities in Greater Manchester.

IPC's Scoping Opinion Consultation

Where the applicant requests a scoping opinion from the IPC, we have 42 days to adopt an opinion and send a copy to the person who made the request. Within that timeframe the IPC is required to invite consultation bodies to comment on the environmental information. We have an obligation to consult relevant local authorities and other bodies as required by Schedule 1 of the Infrastructure Planning (Applications: Prescribed Forms and Procedure) Regulations 2009 (‘the APFP Regulations’).

Scoping Opinion consultation is necessarily conducted prior to submission of an application. Details of those bodies consulted by the IPC are held in appendix 1 of the Scoping Opinions (which are published on our website).

Having checked each of the proposals in the North West, we can confirm that the following proposals have had a scoping opinion issued where one or more of the consultees were Local Authorities in Greater Manchester (i.e. Manchester, Stockport, Tameside, Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Wigan, Salford and/or Trafford).

[Table removed]

To reiterate; for the reasons outlined above, the list we have provided is necessarily incomplete; for example, the promoters may eventually included authorities in their consultation which the IPC did not consult as part of the scoping opinion, and full details of those bodies consulted can not be provided until an application is submitted to the IPC. Furthermore, it may be that a scoping opinion has not yet been issued but where one may eventually include Local Authorities in Greater Manchester.

Finally, please note that although all proposals are at pre-application stage, some are nearing their expected application date. Therefore, for your information, please find below a list of the provisional submission dates:

[Table removed]

I hope the above is of assistance.