Pre planning permission

[rara67]

Please can anyone help with this...a massive local area of greenfield has been bought up by a developer. They set up an exhibition in the local church hall for 1.5 days but only advertised it in the local paper which is read by less than 25% of the poulation. They claim to have printed and distributed 3500 leaflets but no one has received them. I have been reading some info from PlanAct and it seems that they have a legal obligation to consult the local community ie the exhibition but I would argue that they didnt do this as they didnt advertise it property. Any idea where I would get the relevant regs? I want to be fully armed before I tackle my local council. Many thanks

There is a duty to consult in the Planning and Compulsory purchase Act 2004 and applicants have to submit a 'statement of community involvement' with the application which can cover future engagement as well as any steps which have currently taken place. I don't believe there are any specific arrangements which have to take place but it would usually involve an exhibition, a newspaper advert and leaflets. There is also no requirement to do this before the application for planning permission is actually submitted.

You could write to the local authority now setting out the problems with the consultation, but a) the developer can fix this when the application is actually submitted and b) planning applications are unlikely to be refused just because of the community involvement (or lack of it).

I would suggest checking your local plan which will be available on the Council's website and, as a starting point, find out whether the site has been allocated for any development, if not, whether there are any particular and Council specific arrangements about non-allocated land or windfall sites and whether there are any other reasons which would justify a refusal of planning permission (eg green belt (not just green field); access problems; Site of special interest; noise problems etc) and use that as your basis for writing to the Council.

Thank you so much. This is the third attempt at replying so will try and remember what I said before! I though SCI was just for the council so that's very helpful. For example the developer is promising play parks and open space which is all very lovely but who is going to maintain them in the long term? Is that something that should be on their statement?

I appreciate that the leaflets or lack of them will have no impact on the final decision but I think I should let my council know who they are dealing with.

We are setting up a residents action group and have hire the village hall for a couple of Saturday to encourage locals to give their opinion and get involved - it would be great if we could find someone who had recently retired from planning (I did speak to someone but he retired 20 years ago!) Any more tips and advice on this type of campaign would be very very welcome. Many thanks.