A draft of a refreshed and updated SCI (which was originally adopted in 2008) will be presented for approval for consultation.  This covers both local plan and planning application consultation with the general public.

The Senior Planner introduced the report which outlined what a Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) was, and why Swale needed to refresh its existing one.  It also presented a draft SCI to publish for consultation.

The Senior Planner stated that an SCI sets how, when and where the Council consults with local and statutory stakeholders, both during the production of development plan documents, and within the development management process.  She explained that the Council was required by law to produce an SCI and the Council’s current SCI was adopted in 2008.  Since 2008, provisions within the National Planning Policy Framework 2012 (NPPF) had been introduced, along with the Localism Act in 2011, and the emphasis had now firmly been placed on early engagement and collaboration with neighbourhoods, local organisations and businesses, making planning more inclusive of people and communities who want to be involved in planning their area.

The Senior Planner stated that whilst drafting the SCI they had looked at best practice and other examples of SCI’s and tried to keep it flexible to ensure that the different consultation needs of different planning documents could be met whilst embedding the principles of consultation within the planning processes.  Members were asked to agree the draft SCI which would then go out for a 6 week consultation at the start of September 2017, in order to avoid the summer holidays.

Members considered the documents and raised the following points and suggested amendments: do not consider developer consultation events were useful and often left the public confused about whether applications were really going to come forward; Council needed to be careful not to be seen to promote applications and a clear distinction between the Council and developer was needed; did not consider the document should include photographs of private organisations; need to ensure printed documents were available at a reasonable charge as stated in the document; Pages 26 and 27 of the draft SCI needed to be clearer in respect of what Swale will do in respect of: posting site notices; and sending neighbour notification letters - guidance on this needs to be clearly set-out so the public know what to expect; it needed to include how Ward Members would be informed with applications in their ward and how they are progressing; the 21 day deadline for Parish Councils to respond to applications needs to be extended as they often struggled to meet it; how many neighbouring properties of the planning application site would be written to?; needed to look again at allowing neighbouring parishes to speak at Planning Committee; the definition of ‘prior approval applications’ needed to be included in the glossary; AONBs need to be included in the ‘Who will we involve in consultations?’ on page 10 of the SCI; needed to ensure that if an application is amended that the relevant people were re-consulted as this does not always happen; a superb document; the ‘Who We Will Involve In the Development Management Process’ on page 13 of the SCI needed to be revised as several are down as Statutory Consultees and Non-Statutory Consultees; need to ensure non-statutory groups such as amenity groups, community groups, sports groups, shopkeepers, AONB, environmental groups such as the RSPB, Kent Wildlife Trust and the Woodland Trust were included.

The Senior Planner reported that the developer consultation events pre-application were encouraged by Central Government.  She accepted that they could cause some confusion but they were part of national policy and were seen as a way to keep local people involved with developments in their area.    With regard to printed documents, these were always provided when requested, at a charge. The Senior Planner agreed to liaise with colleagues in Development Control about adding further guidance with regard to planning applications and how local residents were informed about applications.  She agreed to add details of what prior approval applications were into the Glossary and AONBs to the table on page 10 of the SCI as requested. 

The Head of Planning explained that only residents that abut the application site were notified.  He advised that Ward Members and residents could log on to the Council’s Public Access System and receive alerts about developments in the local area.  The Senior Planner agreed to add this information to the SCI.

Recommended:

(1)  That the draft Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) be recommended for a period of public consultation.

(2)  That the Chairman of the LDF Panel together with the Head of Planning Services be allowed to update the document prior to consultation, including the changes as minuted, and if any of the proposals set out within the Government’s Housing White Paper (2017) are adopted into policy before September.