The list below is a record of advice the Planning Inspectorate has provided in respect of the Planning Act 2008 process.
There is a statutory duty under section 51 of the Planning Act 2008 to record the advice that is given in relation to an application or a potential application and to make this publicly available. Advice we have provided is recorded below together with the name of the person or organisation who asked for the advice and the project it relates to. The privacy of any other personal information will be protected in accordance with our Information Charter which you should view before sending information to the Planning Inspectorate.
Note that after a project page has been created for a particular application, any advice provided that relates to it will also be published under the ‘s51 advice’ tab on the relevant project page.
Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived. View the archived advice.
Navitus Bay Wind Park View all advice for this project
Enquiry
Advice to Local authorities and the applicant involved in the Navitus Bay Wind park project in respect of s106 agreements, following a discussion at the issue specific hearing held 21 January 2015.
Advice given
In respect of s106 agreements the PINS guidance (Procedural Guide Planning appeals England, 1 April 2014, (available at attachment 1 ), is as follows:
?Counterpart documents are legal documents identical in all respects except that each is signed by a different party or parties. This is not appropriate to planning obligations, since these are public law documents which are entered on the planning register and the local land charges register and are often copied to residents and other interested people. The planning obligation should be conveniently available as one single document executed by all the relevant parties.
There may be circumstances where it is agreed in advance by the parties that counterparts are the only practical option. In these cases, both the Inspector and the local planning authority should be satisfied that certified copies of all the individually signed documents have been provided (by a solicitor or other suitably legally qualified person).?
Therefore a single document is considered best, however counterparts can be acceptable if the correct documents are provided as evidence. The s106 should include a clause explicitly providing for the deed to be executed in counterpart.
An example counterpart clause would be "This [agreement OR deed] may be executed in any number of counterparts, each of which when executed [and delivered] shall constitute a duplicate original, but all the counterparts shall together constitute the one agreement.?
This communication does not constitute legal advice and parties should seek their own independent legal advice.
