The Head of Planning and Regulatory has submitted a report which details a revised and improved version of the Statement of Community Involvement in Planning following public consultation.

Officer Recommendations: That the City Executive Board

1.    AGREE to adopt the Statement of Community Involvement in Planning as the Council’s formal statement about how it will engage and involve people in planning decisions; and

2.    DELEGATE authority to the Head of Planning and Regulatory, in consultation with the Executive Lead Member, to make any necessarily editorial corrections to the Statement of Community Involvement in Planning prior to final publication.

The Head of Planning and Regulatory submitted a report (previously circulated now appended) which detailed a revised and improved version of the Statement of Community Involvement in Planning following an extensive public consultation exercise.

Cllr Hollingsworth, Board Member for Planning, Transport and Regulatory Services presented the report. He explained that it was both best practice and a legal requirement that the Council had a formal Statement of Community Involvement in Planning.  He said that the document had been subject to extensive public consultation and consideration by all councillors.  He thanked the report author for her hard work in preparing the document.

With reference to the Scrutiny Committee recommendations on this item Cllr Hollingsworth said that the suggested drafting amendments would be addressed in the final version of the document; that the action plan would address the need to improve ICT systems to enhance the user experience; and that options for “neighbouring property notification letters” would be referred to all Political Groups for comment.

The Senior Planner briefed the Board on the detail of the report.  She explained that an Action Plan had been added to capture issues raised by councillors and residents which could not be immediately addressed.  She said that much of the focus of the Action Plan would be to continue to look at best practice and new ideas to promote greater interaction with a wider audience.

The Board noted that residents often felt frustrated by the lack of information available from developers at the earliest, pre-application, stages of large planning developments.  The Board asked what could be done to address this.  The Senior Planner explained that the document sought to encourage developers to engage with the local community from the outset but that this was not something that could be enforced.  One local authority required developers to sign its Statement of Community Involvement and this was an initiative that the planning officers would be monitoring.

The City Executive Board resolved to:

1.         AGREE to adopt the Statement of Community Involvement in Planning as the Council’s formal statement about how it will engage and involve people in planning decisions; and

2.         DELEGATE authority to the Head of Planning and Regulatory, in consultation with the Executive Lead Member, to make any necessarily editorial corrections to the Statement of Community Involvement in Planning prior to final publication.

The Board noted that this was the final attendance at CEB of Adrian Roche, City Development officer.  They thanked him for his work and support and wished him well in his new position.