BROXTOWE BOROUGH COUNCIL SUBMISSION STATEMENT OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT “Having Your Say on Planning Matters” P M Stone Director of Planning and Community Development Broxtowe Borough Council Council Offices Foster Avenue Beeston Nottingham NG9 1AB Telephone: 0115 917 7777 Fax: 0115 917 3377 Email: [email protected] October 2006 Statement of Community Involvement – Having Your Say On Planning Matters Page No Contents: 1 Introduction 2 Part One – The process of Community Involvement Relationship with the Council’s aims and objectives 3 Scope of Involvement 3 Methods of engagement 4 SCI examination process 5 Resources and Management 5 Feedback, monitoring and review 6 Availability of information 6 Part Two – Policy documents The principles of community involvement 9 Which documents are in the Local Development Framework? 9 How communities will gain from the process 10 Stages of the process which incorporate community involvement 10 How we will consult you on preparing policy documents 12 Part Three – Planning applications Explanation of current consultation procedure 13 How we will consult you on planning applications 16 Appendix 1 Extract from Local Development Scheme programme Appendix 2 List of consultee groups Appendix 3 Title and description of Local Development Documents Appendix 4 Definition of Terms Appendix 5 Potential Methods of Community Involvement Statement of Community Involvement - Having Your Say on Planning Matters 1 Statement of Community Involvement – Having Your Say On Planning Matters Introduction: In 2004 the government introduced The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act. The Act requires local authorities to prepare a Local Development Framework (LDF) to replace the previous system of local plans and county structure plans. The LDF will give details of where new development will take place and the policies which will guide the decisions on planning applications. The LDF is designed to be regularly reviewed and updated. It will consist of a number of Development Plan Documents (DPDs), accompanied by Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs), which support and enlarge upon the content of the DPDs. The overall plan which informs these documents is the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS). A draft of this is currently out to consultation and gives options for local authorities and key stakeholders to comment upon. The first document, which has already been prepared, is the Local Development Scheme (LDS). This gives the title and a summary of each of the documents that will combine to form the LDF. A timetable for the production of the documents and an explanation of how this is to be achieved and monitored is included in the LDS. You will need to refer to that document to access full details of content and the times for involvement and comment. The central theme of the new process is public engagement. Communities, interest groups and individuals are encouraged to assist in developing each document. Every authority is to produce a Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) as one of the Local Development Documents (LDDs), to inform all interested parties about how we propose to achieve this. The timetable for the SCI is given in Appendix 1 attached to the back of this document. There are two elements to the SCI: • Involvement in policy documents and • Involvement in decision making on planning applications. This document does not contain new planning policies or allocate sites, but outlines how we will involve all sections of the community in future document preparation. A preliminary consultation based on the content of the SCI was held in July/August 2005 and responses to that stage have been taken into account in producing this document. This document is being formally submitted to the Secretary of State (SoS), and is subject to a further 6 week consultation period. The submitted document will be put before an independent inspector for a binding decision and then adopted by the council. Statement of Community Involvement - Having Your Say on Planning Matters 2 PART ONE – THE PROCESS OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT Relationship with the Council’s aims and objectives: 1. The council has five corporate objectives which it already pursues through the Local Plan and expects to continue to meet on implementation of all LDDs. These are: • Successful and inclusive communities • A safe and healthy society • A successful economy • Enhancing our environment • Providing high quality services. 2. The council is committed to community involvement and this is achieved partly through the Community Strategy. The corporate aims of the Council include the following: • Represent, promote and include the community at all levels • Identify the causes of social exclusion and take action to ensure services are accessible to all • Improve the infrastructure of the borough • Focus on environmental needs • Take action to enhance the environment for future generations • Strive to continuously improve the quality and level of services It is expected that the Statement of Community Involvement will encourage progress in achieving all of the above aims. Scope of Involvement 3. Groups will be invited to contribute to discussions and an exchange of ideas once the preparation of a new document is due to commence. Statutory consultees comprise the organisations included in the Town and Country Planning (Local Development) (England) Regulations, 2004. 4. It would be unrealistic to expect to speak to everyone in the borough, but there are many representative groups that are best placed to communicate the views of the communities they represent. New groups may be formed as a result of the widening of public involvement. We will endeavour to be inclusive and consult regardless of colour, ethnic origin, sex, religion or sexual orientation. We recognise however that there are ‘hard to reach’ groups who tend to be underrepresented in responses to consultation exercises. These may include: The young Single parent families Statement of Community Involvement - Having Your Say on Planning Matters 3 The elderly Those with disabilities and access problems Black and ethnic minority groups Carers Those unable to read/write/speak English Those whose principal means of communication is not speech and/or hearing Those with learning difficulties Refugee and asylum speakers Deprived communities Those in poverty Gypsies and travellers Gay, lesbian and bi-sexual groups Homeless Drug users The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and Disability Discrimination Acts 1995, and 2005, apply to this document and the provisions of these acts are complied with. Members of the public have been asked to suggest any groups that may have been omitted in the questionnaire and online through the council’s web site. Methods of engagement 5. A number of methods will be adopted by the council to enable this process to be as productive as possible. The methods adopted have been chosen according to their suitability for each document and area of interest. Tables of intended methods are given on pages 12 and 16. Elected members of the council have a positive role to play in this process, acting as information disseminators, mediators and a contact point for both the public and officers. Early involvement is to be encouraged to enable identification of issues. The questionnaire therefore asked consultees to indicate at which stage(s) they would like to be involved. An assessment of the various methods of involvement considered is given in appendix 5. 6. In order to reduce the possibility of ‘consultation fatigue’, the council aims, wherever possible, to bring together other participation exercises in which they are involved to make the best use of people’s time. The council already has a network of effective community liaison meetings throughout the borough which are central to disseminating information on planning matters. These are the Community Action Teams (CATs) which exist in all but one of the borough’s wards and meet on a quarterly basis. As they already represent a broad range of organisations, CATs will be able to perform a useful function in dealing Statement of Community Involvement - Having Your Say on Planning Matters 4 with planning issues and may be able to suggest some other ways of contacting ‘hard to reach’ groups. Additionally, the Broxtowe Partnership members will be contacted and asked to participate. The partnership has a broad interest base with members of community associations, voluntary groups and the business community, all with a different perspective and a set of contacts which will prove useful. A list of those groups identified and consulted is included in Appendix 2 and includes the members of the partnership and key stakeholders, together with ‘hard to reach’ groups identified so far. The council will endeavour to keep the list of consultees up to date through contact with them at requested stages. The council will learn from the experience of involvement and improve the arrangements when this is indicated to be necessary. 7. The council will submit DPDs and documents to the Secretary of State prior to adoption. The requirements are for; a sustainability appraisal report, the adopted statement of community involvement, a statement setting out the consultations carried out, how bodies were consulted, the issues raised and how those have been addressed together with a statement giving details of all representations and supporting documents used in the preparation of the DPD. SCI examination process: 8. The SCI will be subject to independent examination. The examination will be carried out by an Inspector, from the Planning Inspectorate (PINS). When the SCI is submitted for examination, anyone with unresolved issues will be able to make representations, which will be considered at that time. The document will be adopted after the Inspectors binding report is received and any amendments incorporated. After this date, the council will make the DPD and all supporting information available during normal working hours at the usual deposit points. The adoption statement will be sent to anyone who requests to receive a copy and to the Secretary of State.