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Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived.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.
Rail Central (Strategic Rail Freight Interchange)
Enquiry
Mr Hayward sent comments to the Planning Inspectorate about the visual impact of the proposed scheme.
Advice given
At the Acceptance stage of the Planning Act 2008 process, in consideration of how an applicant has carried out its statutory Pre-application consultation duties, the Planning Inspectorate will apply tests in relation to how the applicant has demonstrated in its Consultation Report that it has had regard to consultation responses. Applicants must provide evidence of the steps taken in response to any queries or concerns received, or provide reasoned justification for why no action was taken. It is important therefore for any concerns about an applicant’s consultation to be shared with it at the appropriate time, and in the appropriate manner; as advertised by the applicant in its Statement of Community Consultation.
In January 2016 the Planning Inspectorate issued a scoping opinion in response to a scoping report submitted by Ashfield Land Management Ltd (ALM) in December 2015. The scoping opinion is a formal written opinion about the information to be included in ALM’s Environmental Statement (for submission with any application for development consent). It establishes the environmental aspects that the Planning Inspectorate thinks should be assessed and the methods it thinks are appropriate to do so. The Rail Central scoping opinion is available to read on our website, here:
attachment 1
The scoping opinion records the applicant’s intention to consult with the local authority and Natural England about its landscape and visual assessment. A typical approach to considering and finalising associated methodologies would apply the guidance Guidelines for Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment (3rd ed), produced by the Landscape Institute and the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA). The methodology that Rail Central chooses in carrying out its landscape and visual assessment must be presented in the Environmental Statement submitted with any application for development consent. That methodology will then be subject to any examination of the application (by one or more Examining Inspectors), and interested parties will be able to make representations about it at the appropriate time (see information about the application process, here: attachment 2.
