Publishing (or not) of public comments

RE: Publishing (or not) of public comments

2024-05-13T12:25:22Z

Liz, we in BCC stopped publishing commenter name and address 2 years ago. But we do still publish the comment wording itself.

What were the approval mechanisms for the change

Request from Cllr following emails of concern from their constituents re. disclosure of their home address. Mainly from a safety POV – not so much regarding potential local disagreements on planning matters but on the general safety of having their name and address published on the internet. It seemed to us that nowhere is that really allowed or expected these days, and seemed quite an unreasonable thing to be doing upon reflection.

Research document on a. legal perspectives (mainly focussing on the requirement to gather as little info as possible to complete the task) and b. approach of other LAs.

Presented to Planning Mngmt, and approved sign off. I can send to you if you need.

Was there any feedback following the change

All good bar one agent who was concerned he could no longer follow up on neighbours’ comments to their front door…

Main reason for change

Personal safety of citizens of the city, and withholding their location from being published online

Have there been resource implications – both positively in terms of not needing to redact comments but potentially also negatively in terms of dealing with FOIA requests for copies of that information. If you could provide an estimate of savings/costs that would be really useful.

Main resource impact was from programming with Idox. It took a while and was more complicated than I expected it to be. We retain 2 copies of each comment: 1 with name and address shown (kept private on DMS) and 1 with it redacted (public on Planning Online) so FOI no problem but we wouldn’t disclose the full version there either.

Admin teams have had to replicate the redaction approach manually with any emailed / posted comments. That was extra resource and we had to phase it in.

Have you made comments available to the public to view whilst the application was live? Or do Officers provide a summary of public comments?

NA – we still show comment wording, just not name and address of commenter

What do you send to PINS when an application goes to appeal, in terms of public comments

The redacted versions

Was there any issue getting Councillors on side with the change?

No, they requested it but we do still publish comment wording

RE: Publishing (or not) of public comments

2024-05-10T08:51:20Z

"PAS guidance is in favour of not publishing comments"

Hi Liz

I haven't gone back to check the exact wording but my memory is that we said comments from private individuals are probably not worth the extra work in publishing. Stat cons / amenity groups etc are worth it.

As an aside, have you noticed any AI or bot-type things starting to happen in consultations?

Richard

Publishing (or not) of public comments

2024-05-09T13:16:52Z

Currently North Yorkshire Council are looking at the publishing of public comments on planning applications. We are aware of a few authorities, including those local to us have taken the decision to no longer publish public comments on planning applications.

I was wondering if there might be any other authorities who have taken this step and if you have if you are willing to provide some information about how you went about this, including:

What were the approval mechanisms for the change
Was there any feedback following the change
Main reason for change
Have there been resource implications – both positively in terms of not needing to redact comments but potentially also negatively in terms of dealing with FOIA requests for copies of that information. If you could provide an estimate of savings/costs that would be really useful.
Have you made comments availble to the public to view whilst the application was live? Or do Officers provide a summary of public comments?
What do you send to PINS when an application goes to appeal, in terms of public comments
Was there any issue getting Councillors on side with the change?

We are aware that the PAS guidance is in favour of not publishing comments so it is an avenue we are looking into as we have found recently we are dealing with a number of customers who are unhappy with their name and address being published online.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Liz