Refusal to accept comments after the stautory date

Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Open group | Started - July 2012 | Last activity - This week

Former Member, modified 7 Years ago.

Refusal to accept comments after the stautory date

We have a growing collection of DM officers growing heartily sick of spending much of their time chasing up responses from consultees (far too often right up until planning committee and/or due decision date). A radical in our midst has thrown out the notion that we adopt a policy (not dissimilar to that of PINS for appeals) of sticking rigidly to the statutory deadline for consultation responses (both stat and public), so basically you either make your comment within the specified period or forever hold your piece (effectively we would return any comments received after the applicable dates). We are aware of the not inconsiderable pitfalls, but I was wondering if anyone has gone

down, or considered going down, this route in the past?

Gary Collins, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Refusal to accept comments after the stautory date

New Member Posts: 7 Join Date: 12/08/13 Recent Posts

At Bristol we were particularly frustrated where this affected Committee items, so we brought in an arrangement that we would disregard comments received after a specific date (a fortnight before the date of the Committee meeting. This means that officers can focus on their reports and presentations in the lead up to the meeting, rather than having to keep a running tally of objections etc. We do apply some flexibility to this however, particularly if a significant comment is made during this period. We discussed this with our 2 DC Committee Chairs & Vice Chairs before implementing this and the reference on our website is as follows: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/planning-and-building-regulations/comment-on-a-planning-application

martin hutchings, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Refusal to accept comments after the stautory date

Enthusiast Posts: 30 Join Date: 26/02/13 Recent Posts

I like this and it falls nicely into a 'managed risk' approach. I'd like to include this as an example of practice within our DM Challenge Toolkit http://www.pas.gov.uk/dm-challenge-toolkit - would you be ok with that? To help others I wondered what the typical challenges you received were to adopting this approach and how you responded/convinced people that no one would die if you did this. Thanks.

Gary Collins, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Refusal to accept comments after the stautory date

New Member Posts: 7 Join Date: 12/08/13 Recent Posts

Martin, more than happy to have this included as an example of good practice. I think the key to implementing this was to engage with Committee Members ie. those also affected by the late receipt of comments and who also have a role to ensure that their is "fair play" in the consideration of major planning applications.

Former Member, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Refusal to accept comments after the stautory date

Gary, that is essentially the rule that PINS introduced a few years back, and which inspectors appear to have ignored.

I understand the statutory period is not a cut-off for representations but the time in which the LPA is barred from making a decision - see DMPO Article 34(9) and compare its "must not determine" with "should do so by" in the wording for publicity in Schedule 3. It seems to me the most we can do is encourage people to respond within 21 days (or any longer period we choose) and point out that if they reply later they may find the decision has been made.

How do you explain this in neighbour letters and did you have legal advice that it is "notice in the appropriate form set out in Schedule 3 or in a form substantially to the same effect" as required by Article 15(10)?

Gary Collins, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Refusal to accept comments after the stautory date

New Member Posts: 7 Join Date: 12/08/13 Recent Posts

Mark, our letters don't make this explicit as this only applies to Cttee items and the defence is that the letters quote the statutory timescale.

Former Member, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Refusal to accept comments after the stautory date

Would it not be better to find out why the comments come in late first, fix the fixable isues and only then consider an ignore policy?

As a consultee working in environmental health, applications without relevant information on nosie, contamiantion issues, etc are the bane of my working life along with delays in uploading lengthy reports etc where I can see them. Weak validation and too much workload everywhere in the system prevents this situation improving.