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Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived.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.
Enquiry
Our question as to whether this could be viewed in practice as a consultation period between PINS & RSP was really not answered. To an observer this does seem to be the case borne out by conferences you have had with RPS during the 28 day period. Is it normal to liaise with applicants during this period? Also the reply you did give we found confusing.
"Advice reflecting the same concerns would have been issued to the Applicant if it had not decided to withdraw the application and the Planning Inspectorate had proceeded to issue an Acceptance decision."
This does seem to infer that in spite of the inadequacies that there was a possibility that you would allow this application to proceed to examination. Surely given these gaps in information it should be declined. If it had of been accepted(or the possibility it would) what is the the point of the a pre-application. Given the eleventh hour of the withdrawal by RSP PINS must have come to a decision whether to accept the pre-application or not. There is a general feeling in Thanet that you are giving RSP a lot of support and leeway as it is being viewed as an exercise prior to a DCO application from Heathrow.
Advice given
First, by way of clarification an ‘Acceptance decision’ in the context of the statement copied in to your enquiry is ‘a decision about whether or not to accept the application’ – not a ‘decision to accept the application for examination’.
Second, in analogous circumstances the Planning Inspectorate has contacted other applicants to establish concerns. In that respect, the following applications have also been withdrawn by the respective applicants at the Acceptance stage:
• Rampion Offshore Wind Farm: attachment 1
• Mynydd y Gwynt Wind Farm: attachment 2
• York Potash Harbour Facility: attachment 3
• Tees CCPP: attachment 4
