Merton Council queried whether it could be included in correspondence from the Planning Inspectorate regarding the adequacy of the Applicant’s Pre-application consultation.

Section (“s”) 55(4)(b) of the Planning Act 2008 (“PA2008”) requires the Planning Inspectorate (“the Inspectorate”) to have regard to any adequacy of consultation representations (“AoCR”) received from local authority consultees when reaching its conclusion under s55(3)(e) regarding whether an applicant has complied with Chapter 2 of Part 5 of the PA2008; compliance with Chapter 2 of Part 5 of the PA2008 being a prerequisite for an application to be accepted for Examination. In this context, a ‘local authority consultee’ is an authority that has been consulted by an applicant about a proposed application under s42(1)(b) of the PA2008 due to being within the definition of a ‘local authority’ set out under s43 (a “prescribed local authority”). It is unclear whether the Applicant, Gatwick Airport Limited, consulted with Merton Council during its statutory consultation, and the Inspectorate is only required to take into account AoCRs from prescribed local authorities when deciding whether or not to accept an application for Examination. This does not preclude Merton Council from submitting an AoCR, however it would be at the discretion of the Inspectorate as to how this was accounted for. It may be the case that AoCRs from non-prescribed local authorities are not material to any conclusion reached under section 55(3)(e), and comments from non-prescribed bodies may be summarised in documentation published following the Acceptance stage rather than reflected verbatim. Notwithstanding this, it appears that you may also be a representative of the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames, which is a prescribed local authority in relation to this proposed scheme and will be invited to submit an AoCR following receipt of the application.