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Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived.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
Assessment of Strategic Rail Freight Interchanges
Advice given
Thank you for your correspondence dated 5 May 2016; its contents have been read and noted.
The Planning Inspectorate does not produce the type of guidance you refer to in respect of Strategic Rail Freight Interchanges (SFRI). The Department for Transport are responsible for preparing the National Network National Policy Statement which would be the key policy document in respect of those SFRI that meet the requirements of the Planning Act 2008. You may wish to contact them in respect of the key points in your letter.
In your letter you also refer to a specific scheme, being Rail Central. This is currently at the Pre-Application stage and the Inspectorate are aware that a scoping request was submitted in December 2015 and that the current consultation exercise (which includes the developer’s Preliminary Environmental Information Report) runs from 28 April 2016 to 30 September 2016. You may wish to share the contents of your letter with the developer of the Rail Central scheme during this statutory consultation activity.
You also mention specific cases that have not been determined through the Planning Act route, however legislation related to the Planning Act governs who is considered to be the Consultation Bodies for the purposes of compiling a Scoping Opinion – more information on this is set out in our Advice Note 3:
attachment 1
There is a useful annexe to that Advice Note that sets out the current approach in respect of Transport for London and when they would be identified as a consultation body for the production of a Scoping Opinion:
attachment 2
The legislation in respect of the Planning Act is ‘owned’ by Department for Communities and Local Government.
