The report is at item 6 of the agenda for the Cabinet’s meeting on Monday 19 June 2017 and its appendix is in the agenda supplement.
It is anticipated that the following recommendations will be made by the Cabinet earlier in the day to the Council at this special meeting:
RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL
That the Council approves:
(1) The Statement of Community Involvement for a six-week public consultation.
(2) The delegation of authority to the Head of Planning Services following consultation with the Cabinet Member for Planning Services to enable minor amendments to be made to the document prior to and following public consultation.
Minutes:
The Council considered the recommendations made to it by the Cabinet at its meeting earlier in the day as set out on the face of the agenda (copy attached to the official minutes), the details in respect of which were contained in the report on pages 22 to 24 of the agenda for that meeting and also in the appendix to the report on pages 119 to 132 of the agenda supplement. All CDC members had received a copy of the Cabinet agenda and agenda supplement.
Mrs Taylor (the Cabinet Member for Planning Services) formally moved the recommendations of the Cabinet which had been made earlier in the day and this was seconded by Mr Dignum (Leader of the Council).
Mrs Taylor explained that it was a legal requirement for a local authority to produce a statement of community involvement (SCI), which would set out CDC’s approach to engage the public and other interested parties, including specific organisations that had to be consulted, in all planning policy and development management matters. An SCI explained the different categories of planning documents, the stages applicable to them and how the development management system worked. There were five engagement commitments to guide CDC in undertaking consultations (para 3.1 page 124): (a) be clear about what we are doing; (b) be inclusive: (c) be accessible; (d) be transparent; (e) be accountable. The current SCI was adopted in 2013. Although not caught by the prospective requirement under the recently enacted Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 to review an SCI every five years, given the review of the Chichester Local Plan: Key Policies 2014-2029 (CLP) now underway this was an appropriate time to review the SCI. The SCI was not the subject of amendments when considered by CDC’s Development Plan and Infrastructure Panel on 3 May 2017 (para 8.2 of the report). If approved by the Council the draft SCI would be made available for public consultation for a period of six weeks between 22 June 2017 and 3 August 2017.
During the ensuing discussion (full details of which are available via the audio recording on CDC’s web-site) members made comments and asked questions about various matters and received where appropriate answers from Mr Dignum, Mrs Taylor or officers, namely Mr Allgrove, Mr Frost and Mrs Shepherd. The subjects included:
(a) The initiation of a neighbourhood development plan (para 3.14 on page 127 of the agenda supplement) - this had to be by a parish or town or city council in the case of the whole parish area or if less than the whole parish area eg a city or town centre area, then it could be initiated by a neighbourhood planning forum; whether there had been a change in the relevant regulations to require in the latter case the initiation and support by a parish etc council would be checked by officers.
(b) The section 3.4 on page 125 ‘Who do we involve?’ and whether parish councils, particularly Chichester City Council, were entitled to nominate residents associations etc (representing significant numbers of people with important points of view to express) to receive the consultation documents directly rather than the parish council itself having to supply the papers upon request to such organisations – links were provided to view the consultation documents online; paras 3.5 to 3.7 covered the specific point, whereas para 3.4 related to bodies which were required by statute to be consulted, and in the light of para 3.7 parish councils should be encouraging such organisations to ensure they were registered on CDC’s consultation database.
(c) The desirability of inserting a short reference or para between paras 3.7 and 3.8 on page 126 stating that communities could engage at the independent examination stage by in certain circumstances giving evidence, there being a brief mention of the examination in the diagram on page 123 – this had been agreed by the Cabinet at its meeting earlier in the day to be a sound suggestion and action would be taken to add such a reference but in order to avoid delaying the start of the consultation this might have to wait until it had been concluded.
(d) The reference in para 2.9 on page 122 was to different preparation and consultation stages for development plan documents and supplementary planning documents but the diagram on page 123 did not differentiate between them but referred instead in the ‘Inspect’ box to development plan documents’ – this was an editorial issue which could be addressed during the consultation.
At the end of the debate the following decision was made by the Council meeting.
Decision
The Council voted with respect to the recommendations made to it by the Cabinet and on a show of hands it was unanimously in favour of making the resolutions set out below, with no votes against and no abstentions.
RESOLVED
(1)
That the Statement of Community Involvement be approved for a
six-week public consultation.
(2) That authority be delegated to the Head of Planning Services following consultation with the Cabinet Member for Planning Services to enable minor amendments to be made to the document prior to and following public consultation.