Horizon Nuclear Power provided their draft Statement of Community Consultation (SoCC) for the Planning Inspectorate's comment and asked for the Planning Inspectorate's view on the timing of consultation.

The Planning Inspectorate provided the following advice:
You have asked for the Planning Inspectorate?s view on undertaking statutory consultation during the summer holiday months of July and August. As many people take holiday during these months, there is a chance that the consultees (both members of the public and those representing statutory bodies) may have less time to allocate to compiling a meaningful response, and they may feel disadvantaged as a result. Therefore we would strongly advise that you extend your summer consultation period to before and/or after the holiday months. We also recognise that holding consultation during the holiday season may enable tourists to comment on a proposal, which is beneficial.
We would also advise you to liaise with the Isle of Anglesey County Council (IACC) on the timing of the consultation as they will have local information which will assist you. We note that you are not intending to list the consultation dates and meeting/exhibition dates within your SoCC, we would therefore advise that you liaise with IACC (and Gwynedd
and Conwy where relevant) on the proposed dates and locations.
Comments on the draft SoCC dated December 2015:
Page 2
- Paragraph 3 ? whilst the current wording is helpful, you could also refer to the wording of the legislation under s47 of the PA 2008 which refers to consultation with those ?people living in the vicinity of the land?.
- paragraph 5 ? the Local Impact Report is submitted after the application is submitted (during the examination).
- Paragraph 6 ? under s47(6)(za) there is a duty on the applicant to make the statement available for inspection by the public in a way that is reasonably convenient for people living in the vicinity of the land. If hard copy consultation documents are being provided at certain locations, you would be advised to also include a hard copy of the SoCC.
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- Paragraph 3 - ?is? should be removed in the last line: The Planning Inspectorate must consider, and the Secretary of State must determine, our application for a development consent order is in accordance with the following National Policy Statements.
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- Paragraph 1 ? we would suggest you remove reference to the ?National Infrastructure Planning Unit?, therefore you may wish to re-word this. We are within the Major Applications and Plans Directorate, however I would suggest reference to the specific Directorate is not used as it may be confusing.
- To whom and how will the preliminary environmental information be provided? It could be helpful to include this information.
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- Paragraph 1 - the term Associated Development has been used to refer to development which falls outside of the PA 2008 regime earlier in the document. However we also note use of the terms ?associated buildings? and ?associated plants? in this paragraph, this may be confusing to readers as to whether you are referring to works integral
to the power station or ?Associated Development?.
- Paragraph 3 - last sentence, although we are keen to discuss this with you, we advise that ?The Planning Inspectorate? is removed and ?key stakeholders? remains.
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- This is more of a general comment, we have heard that consultees don?t always understand the terms ?formal? and ?informal? consultation, and they sometimes assume that ?informal? can be a waste of their time. Therefore you may want to consider other terms, an example is ?statutory, non-statutory and engagement?.
- Paragraph 2 last sentence, what is meant by ?local media?, the wording at the end of the fifth paragraph appears to be clearer.
- You may also wish to refer to the s48 publicity in the third paragraph.
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- Under the heading of ?Stakeholders, groups and organisations?, the use of the terms ?their membership? may be confusing.
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- ?Other Major Consultation? the final sentence isn?t complete.