Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

storing consultation responses v data protection

2020-11-04T15:00:34Z

Hi, we have recently adopted our new local plan and are using this point in time to pause and do a bit of database management. We have used the consultation portal/ system Objective for all our consultations and have built up a rather unwieldy database of around 8000 public consultees. We have run a simple survey asking if people wish to continue to receive notifications of planning consultations - around 500 people responded positively (statutory consultees were not included in the survey). Objective have then made everyone else 'inactive' so we can ensure they are not contacted again.

I'm just not sure what to do next. We can delete inactive people, but if we do we will lose any previous comments they made. A neighbouring authority have archived an anonymized report collating all comments received and then they have deleted all the personal data from their database. However, we have thousands of comments for each consultation and this will be a huge task in itself. So, I have two questions which I'd really appreciate your thoughts on:

1) Is there a requirement to keep original comments received during the plan making process once the local plan is adopted, keeping in mind that we have consultation statements which summarize the comments received for each consultation?

2) If there is a requirement does this mean we can keep the personal details of respondents with their comments, even when they have not opted in to remain on the database?

Any thoughts or feedback on what other authorities have done would be really appreciated,

Liz

Examples of Brownfield Register Part 2

2020-11-04T14:25:57Z

Hi, now we have an adopted local plan we need to get our brownfield allocations onto part 2 of the brownfield register. We're still at the early stages and were hoping to make contact with other authorities that have already been through this process. We've done a search online and are struggling to find published part 2 registers - does anyone know of any LPAs that have part 2 published online? Thanks in advance, Liz

biodiversity offsetting - habitat banks

2019-07-03T08:23:33Z

I am researching how best for our authority to implement biodiversity offsetting to support our draft net gain policy. I've found examples of authorities who have used their own land for offsetting sites but we are a district authority with very little land which would be appropriate for this use. Instead I've been looking at the possibility of commissioning a third party to help us set up a habitat bank and act as a broker between developers wanting to offset loses and landowners of offsetting sites. I was wondering if anyone has any experience of doing this or undertaking the tasks in-house and if so could you share how you went about it? For example, how do you find willing landowners for offsetting sites? How do you fund the initial set up of a habitat bank? Also, I have only come across Environment Bank so far but is anyone aware of any other organisations that could do this type of work? And finally, if you use a broker is there a retainer or contract between the authority and broker for the life of the habitat bank?

Any advice would be gratefully received!

Permission in principle and developer guidelines for allocated sites

2016-11-10T11:22:03Z

I've seen a couple of other posts about permission in principle and wondered if anyone had any views on how they imagained these might impact on how allocations in a Local Plan are presented.

We're about to consult on our draft Local Plan and one of the next pieces of work to do will be to draft developer guidelines for each of the allocated sites. In previous plans we have done this by presenting the guidelines under the map for each site. They have specified the infrastructure requirements to bring the site forward and other site specific issues, such as whether a particular access point should be used or if any features of interest which should be retained or protected. If there is an expectation to grant these sites permission in principle then presuambly these guidelines would be our opportunity to set the parameters for a technical details consent. So should these be set within a policy for each site?

Also, how many guidelines would be reasonable to set the parameters? If we continue with the approach we have previously used (raising only the main issues) than it would seem that most of our allocated sites would come forward meeting only the very basic criteria while our local plan, full of policies striving for additional gains, would sit by redundent. The alternative would be to do an analysis of our local plan policies for each site but that seems a bit heavy handed and possibly too prescriptive?

It'd be good to hear anyone else's thoughts on this,

thanks

Liz

Special Landscape Areas

2014-11-11T10:30:17Z

Our current planning policy includes SLAs and going forward with a new local plan we are considering to what extant local deisngations such as these are supported by the NPPF. Does anyone have experience of going to examination with SLAs or know of a post-NPPF local plan which includes them?