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
