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Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived.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
I note from social media postings that an email was yesterday leaked, from Bircham Dyson Bell to PINs regarding RSP's withdrawn DCO application - indicating that they were seeking to optimise the timing of the publication and facts of their withdrawal letter to suit their own PR purposes and were requesting specific guideance from PINS as to when they should send their withdrawal letter to PINS so it did not get publised before their preferrered date - thus avoiding any difficult questions from the public over the bank holiday weekend.
Is it normal that PINS would accomdate such flexibility on behalf of an applicant that is withdrawing and why would you do so in this case? and how does that square with PINS obligations to be transparent on the DCO processs and to keep the public informed. This again goes to previously expressed concerns by other correspondents regarding the time being taken to actually post meeting notes meaning that the public, who are most impacted, are consistently behind the curve and suggests RSP are being granted high levels of flexibility at the cost of public transparency.
Another example was RSP's revised application that appreared out of left field with no prior notice on the PINs website or futher consultation with the public.
Advice given
An email from Bircham Dyson Bell (BDB) to The Planning Inspectorate (the Inspectorate) dated 3 May 2018 was released as part of a Freedom of Information request. No email response was issued from the Inspectorate in respect of that email. BDB then sent the formal ‘withdrawal’ email to the Inspectorate outside of working hours on Friday 4 May 2018. The Inspectorate did not receive or action that email until the next working day which was Tuesday 8 May 2018 due to the Bank Holiday. Normal working practices were followed in this case.
