Contact Officer: Lyndsey Beveridge, Planning and Regulatory,

Tel:  01865 252482;  e-mail:  lbeveridge@oxford.gov.uk

Members of Planning and Regulatory Services presented the report, explaining that it was both best practice and a legal requirement that the Council had a formal Statement of Community Involvement in Planning.  They explained that this document had been subject to public consultation and consideration by all councillors.  An Action Plan has been added to capture suggested changes and improvements which cannot be immediately addressed, often because of the need for IT system improvements.

The Scrutiny Committee supported the adoption of the Statement of Community Involvement in Planning (2015) and commended officers on the document’s tone and the way it was written.  The Committee noted the statutory nature of the document and the need to refrain from designing a planning toolkit whilst considering it.

The Scrutiny Committee made the following observations:

·         it was important to avoid becoming over reliant on the internet and social media to publish and communicate planning matters

·         the Planning Review Committee and Area Forums were not mentioned in the Statement

·         the use of visualisation tools was a welcome development and suggested that this should be made more explicit in the document, with a link to the help-sheet added

·         resident groups should be able to register an area of interest and receive auto-notifications.  The Committee heard that the Council’s IT systems did not currently enable this but that it was not technically difficult to do.  Officers were looking to achieve wider involvement through methods such as the Council’s app, and are exploring whether local groups could play a role in making planning documents available in paper form

·         whether in addition to site notices, printed letters should be sent to neighbours to inform them of planning applications.  The Committee noted that the cost of issuing notification letters for the 2,000 planning applications processed each year was 45k and that this cost had not been budgeted for.  Members asked whether lower cost alternatives were available, for example, could officers post copies of site notices through nearby letterboxes when putting these notices up.

The Scrutiny Committee AGREED to make the following recommendations to the City Executive Board:

1.    We endorse the draft Statement of Community Involvement in Planning subject to minor amendments to include a reference to the Planning Review Committee, Area Forums and external guidance on the use of visualisation tools.

2.    We recommend that the City Council continues to explore new and improved ways of informing residents and community organisations of local planning issues, using both on-line and off-line communication methods.  In particular, enhancements to ICT systems should be prioritised so that individuals and groups that have signed up can receive automatic notifications when specific planning applications are progressed or amended.

3.    We recommend that the City Council explores whether there is a lower cost means of informing local residents of planning applications as an alternative to “neighbouring property notification letters”.  We suggest that proposals are brought forward in the next budget round.