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Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived.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.
East Midlands Gateway Rail Freight Interchange View all advice for this project
Enquiry
The Planning Inspectorate received comments on the application during relevant representation stage not made on prescribed form.
Advice given
The Planning Inspectorate issued following advice:
Thank you for your email concerning the application by Roxhill (Kegworth) Ltd for the proposed East Midlands Gateway RFI.
As you may be aware, before submission of the application, the applicant is under duty to carry out its statutory consultation in accordance with the Planning Act 2008 (PA2008). This requires for consultation to be carried out in a certain manner and to a certain standard. Where a person feels that consultation has not been carried out adequately, it should seek resolution by approaching the applicant directly in the first instance. Where dissatisfaction remains, the appropriate mechanism is to make a complaint to the relevant local authority (who can consider this complaint as part of their representation to the Secretary of State on the adequacy of consultation), or to the Secretary of State (via the Planning Inspectorate).
Any complaint should be made promptly following the close of pre-application consultation to ensure that it was received no later than the point at which an application is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate. In all cases, the final decision as to whether pre-application consultation was adequately carried out rests with the relevant Secretary of State.
As you are likely aware, on 19 September 2014 the Planning Inspectorate (on behalf of the Secretary of State) made its decision that the application by Roxhill (Kegworth) Ltd was of a satisfactory standard to be accepted for examination. The period within which complaints about pre-application consultation could be made and considered by the Inspectorate as part of its acceptance decision has therefore elapsed. Local authorities were invited to make representations to the Inspectorate concerning the adequacy of the applicant?s pre-application consultation, and any complaints made to them should have been taken into account. Those representations are available to view by clicking the following link:
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On submission of the application the Inspectorate applied the associated legal tests (under s55 of the PA2008) to the application documentation, including the consultation evidence provided by the applicant. The Inspectorate decided that the applicant?s pre-application consultation had been of a satisfactory standard, and its commentary and conclusions are available to be read in the ?Acceptance of Applications Checklist?:
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I note that you have submitted a relevant representation (RR) which helpfully sets out your comments in relation to the merits of the scheme. Once appointed, the Examining Authority will read all RRs as part of its preparation to examine the application. To clarify the content of this letter however, comments relating to the adequacy of the applicant?s pre-application consultation can no longer be considered.
