Re: Community Empowerment - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Hi Russ. The PAS submission to Killian & Pretty set out some ideas in this area. I'm not sure whether it's been published somewhere. From memory, our view is that 'community empowerment' increased the risk of annoying people unless we were all extremely good at communicating the different nature of consultation at different stages of the planning process. For example, at issues & options it would be appropriate to talk about site A being better than site B. By the time it gets to a planning application (assuming the plan has taken its course) it's more about mitigation and details. As a punter, I can vouch for the need to keep people who are already interested involved - let alone the disinterested.

Russ/Rich/anyone else, The PAS Killian Pretty submission is available to download here: http://www.pas.gov.uk/pas/core/page.do?pageId=87195 Cheers, John.

Thanks both - does teh white paper bring anything new to the table - it is surely more of teh same and those people who are already involved surely are involved?

Hi Russ, I have been looking into the latest consultation derived from the White paper on improving local accountability with a view to drafting a response on behalf of the Planning Officer's Society. Proposals for increasing the visability and accountability of local public officers, including a new duty on LAs to respond to all petitions, would have had significant implications for the planning system, but, the government in a separate response on local pettions notes that these provisions should not include planning as this is covered by existing processes. This is not made clear however in the current consultation and I will be flagging this up to the DCLG. The deadline for responding is 30th October. see these links for further info> http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/886045.pdf http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/localgovernment/pdf/906840.pdf Regards Ian