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Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived.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.
General
Enquiry
Natural England wished to discuss the Planning Inspectorate’s process from the point of application with respect to the information supplied by an applicant to support an assessment under the requirements of the Habitat Regulations. In particular, it wished to understand how the Inspectorate can test the extent to where matters remain outstanding from discussions held between the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies (SNCBs) and developers pre-application.
Advice given
Discussion was held about the advice the Planning Inspectorate is able to provide at pre-application to developers, including discussion about how developers engage with statutory bodies and key stakeholders to agree an Evidence Plan to support the assessment. The Inspectorate acknowledged the absence of an overseeing organisation in relation to evidence plans and both organisations agreed to raise this point internally. The discussion continued whereby the Planning Inspectorate set out its expectations at acceptance, with reference to Advice Note 10. These expectations include the receipt of evidence of consultation with SNCBs and evidence of how its advice has been addressed. The role of Statements of Common Ground was discussed. Following on from this a discussion was held about how both organisations could work together to best assist the Examining Authority should the application be accepted for examination. The Planning Inspectorate advised that where possible Natural England should take full advantage of the opportunity to submit a Relevant Representation within the period for doing so, adding that detailed content is likely to be most helpful. Natural England highlighted that there is often a large amount of information to absorb during examination and it would be helpful to know which submissions may be of most value to the Examining Authority. The Planning Inspectorate acknowledged this and advised that while each examination is different there may be some practical advice that could be shared and that this could be the subject of further discussion.
