Dear Planning Inspectorate After paying a visit to your website and reading the key points discussed at a meeting that you held with National Highways on 20 May 2022, and after reviewing the online scoping document/diagram, it prompted me to write this email to you and attach my document, entitled, ‘Arundel solution: The Truth’. I appreciate that these meetings maybe normal events leading up to an ‘Applicants’ DCO submission, and that the merits of any scheme will not be considered until at least the pre-examination stage after submission, but given there are discussions at these meetings - albeit at a high-level - about aspects of the proposal and on aspects that the ‘Applicants’ documents need to make clear, I felt it only appropriate that you would want to ensure that there was some balance provided for these pre-submission discussions and information made available on your website. If you choose not to read my report ahead of the pre-examination stage - which will be very disappointing and worrying with respect to procedural fairness - please at the very least publish my document on your web-site. This way it can be made available for all interested parties as we wait for National Highways to submit their A27 Arundel solution proposition. I will, of course, make a separate ‘Relevant Representation’ at Development Consent Order (DCO) submission time. Kind regards

Dear Mr Hammond, Thank you for your e-mail in relation to the proposed A27 Arundel Bypass project on 19 July 2022. Please accept our apologies for the delayed response to your e-mail. The A27 Arundel Bypass project is currently in the Pre-Application stage. The developer has indicated that an application is expected to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in Summer/Autumn, 2022. Please note that the Pre-application consultation process is led by the developer, and the Planning Inspectorate’s role at this stage of the process is to provide advice to Applicants and others under section 51 of the Planning Act 2008 (PA2008), which we have a duty to publish. The developer is responsible for ensuring that it complies with the legislative requirements surrounding consultation, which are set out in the PA2008. This includes a legal requirement for the developer to consult with Statutory Bodies, affected communities and persons with an interest in the land. Your e-mails provide your comments on the merits of the Proposed Development, which the developer is seeking during pre-application. As such, if you have not already done so, it is important that you make these comments directly to the developer. For further information, please see our advice note 8.1 on Responding to the developers pre-application consultation. In particular, paragraph 7.4 which explains how you can raise any concerns about the developer’s pre application consultation. As you may be aware, the developer has recently carried out its public consultation. It is understood, from the developer’s website, that the deadline for consultation responses was 8 March 2022 at 23:59pm. You can make general enquiries about this with the via the following contact details: Phone: 0300 123 500 Email: [email protected]. When an application is formally submitted to the Planning Inspectorate, an assessment is made on whether it is of a satisfactory standard to proceed to Examination. One key element of this assessment is to check whether the Applicant has fulfilled its statutory consultation duties. In order to help make an informed decision on this matter the Inspectorate writes to all host and neighbouring local authorities for their views on the adequacy of consultation carried out. You can contact the local authority if you are concerned that the Applicant has not complied with its duties in relation to consultation under the PA2008. The Applicant is also statutorily required to demonstrate in its submitted application where they have shown regard to responses received during their period of statutory consultation. If the Application is accepted for Examination, you will be able to register as an Interested Party and make a Relevant Representation; Please read our Advice Note 8.2 on How to Register to participate in an Examination for further information. Once an Examining Authority is appointed, it will make an initial assessment of the issues arising from the submitted application as well as from the Relevant Representations received, which will contribute to the Examination of the proposed development. In order to assist parties in understanding the Planning Act 2008 process, the Planning Inspectorate has prepared a suite of Advice Notes, which are available on our website. The Advice Note 8 series provide an overview of the examination of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects for members of the public. Hopefully you will find these of assistance. You may wish to note that the Planning Inspectorate has set up a project page for the A27 Arundel Bypass project where documents received and issued during the course of the Examination will be published. Hopefully this e-mail is of assistance but if you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact us. Your correspondence will be kept on file and a copy of this advice will be published on the project specific webpage under the section 51 advice tab. While common practice is for documents such as the one you submitted, to be submitted as part of a relevant representation, we do appreciate that other documents have been published on the website as part of our Section 51 advice responses for the A27 Arundel Bypass project. Therefore, I can confirm that we will be publishing our response to you and your document in due course. There will be a slight delay while we double check the document (and any additional embedded documents) to ensure that any redactions are applied as appropriate. In particular this is to ensure GDPR compliance. Our Case Administration Team will endeavour to complete this as quickly as possible. Kind Regards