The Head of City Development has submitted a report which details the draft updated Statement of Community Involvement to publish for public consultation.

Officer Recommendations: That the City Executive Board:

1. Agree to publish the draft Statement of Community Involvement for public consultation.

2. Authorise the Head of City Development, in consultation with the Executive Board Member, to make any necessary editorial corrections to the document and to agree the designed version before publication for consultation.         

The Head of City Development submitted a report (previously circulated, now appended) which detailed the draft updated Statement of Community Involvement to publish for public consultation.

The Head of City Development presented the report. He explained that although it was no longer a legal requirement it was still useful to do. Consultation will run through December- January 2015.

Cllr Price asked that a Members’ consultation session be run at the end of January to review the public submissions.

Cllr Hayes, Vice Chair of the Scrutiny Committee presented the Scrutiny Committee’s report. Cllr Price accepted the Scrutiny recommendation to include in the statement of community involvement how the public can access paper versions of planning documents.

The City Executive Board resolved to:

1. Agree to publish the draft Statement of Community Involvement for public consultation.

2. Authorise the Head of City Development, in consultation with the Executive Board Member, to make any necessary editorial corrections to the document and to agree the designed version before publication for consultation.

Report to follow.

Contact Officer: Lyndsey Beveridge, Senior Planner

Email: lbeveridge@oxford.gov.uk

The Head of City Development submitted a report setting out the draft Statement of Community Involvement to be discussed by the City Executive Board.

Lyndsey Beveridge, Senior Planner, and Michael Crofton-Briggs, Head of City Development, introduced the report.

For individual planning applications, letters to neighbours produced about a 2% response rate. These were replaced by site notices and online notifications with alert services. Participation rates were rising. There was no follow-up other than an automated acknowledgement of a comment.

Applicants were encouraged to undertake early consultations and should be including a record of this with their applications. Final reports contained a list of public consultees and their responses. Pre-application discussions with officers were not a matter of public record but could be released under the Freedom of Information Act unless there were reasons not to do so.

Three forums (Headington, Summertown and St Margaret’s, and Wolvercote) were designated and working on their neighbourhood plans.

Officers would be evaluating the results of the recent online consultation about accessing planning applications online.

The Committee made one recommendation to the City Executive Board: that the statement should explain how to view printed copies of plans.