Wrexham Energy Centre
Enquiry
Letter received by the Planning Inspectorate objecting the proposed generating station and route corridor alignment.
Advice given
Thank you for your letter dated 16 May 2013 in regard to the above project. Your letter is useful for us to monitor emerging issues in response to a pre-application proposal. As you may be aware, however, The Planning Inspectorate can accept this letter for information purposes only at this stage.
The proposed Wrexham Energy Centre is currently at the pre-application stage and is expected to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in late 2013. I therefore encourage you to contact the developer directly at this stage of the process as this is the best time to influence a project. I am aware that, to date the applicant has carried out informal consultation on this project.
At the pre-application stage of the process, the developer is required to carry out extensive statutory consultation (under s42, 44 and 47 of the Planning Act 2008) on the proposals before submitting their application to the Planning Inspectorate. This involves providing information about the proposal to various statutory and non-statutory bodies and the wider community, responding to questions, listening to suggestions and taking these into account to influence and inform the application ultimately submitted. The length of time taken to prepare and consult on the project will vary depending upon its scale and complexity.
Once the application has been formally submitted to the Planning Inspectorate a period of 28 days is given to decide whether to ?accept? the application to proceed to Examination. Part of this assessment will consider whether the applicant has adequately complied with their duty to consult and have taken account of any relevant responses from persons they are required to consult under s42, 44 and 47 of the Planning Act 2008.
I have enclosed copies of the following Planning Inspectorate Advice Notes which may be of interest to you. These include further information on the planning process.
Advice note 8.1: How the process works
Advice note 8.2: Responding to the developer?s pre-application consultation