Local Planning Regulations Consultation - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

'I am sure all the others who are named will be only too happy to get round everyone's' tables and start talking detail - al at once'... Especially when they are duty bound to co-operate with a zillion neighbourhood plans!

The Localism Bill places a duty to co-operate on all local planning authorities, county councils and other prescribed bodies or persons - the draft regulations are confirming the identity of the latter and do not need to repeat the inclusion of local authorities.

I'm not sure how 'public participation' on the SCI (current Regulation 26) will be covered under the 'new' (consulation) Regulations. Any ideas?

When you check back to the current version of the Localism Bill (clause 90 - Duty to co-operate in relation to planning of sustainable development) the 'duty' does refer to local planning authorities and as such this should mostly cover the concern raised regarding (most) neighbouring local authorities. However, as is often the case with national policy / legislation it poorly reflects the structure of two-tier local government, which still exists across parts of the country. Whilst the draft regs includes 'highways authorities' it does not include Children Services Authorities (CSAs), Libraries Authorities, Lead Local Flood Authorities, Waste Disposal Authorities (WDAs) etc... which are all responsible bodies for public infrastructure and will no doubt have an important role to play in delivering sustainable development. In two-tier government these functions are primarily carried out by County Councils, which are not covered by the catch all 'local planning authorities' (other than for minerals & waste matters) under the plan making system.

I think that most of these issues are caught up in the "county matters" part of the regs: The bit that refers to "strategic matters" (ie those requiring cooperation) being defined (in 4(b)(i)) as "county matters "

Yes - can see that the 'duty to co-operate' as per the recently released version of the Bill as amended by the House of Lords does specifically refer to County Councils under 98 (1) (b) and also county matters under 98 (4) (b) (i) and (ii). However, it is still puzzling why highways authorities have been specifically prescribed (under L) bearing in mind these are either County Councils, Unitary Councils or District Councils (under delegation from County Councils) and therefore already covered?