Decision details

On 13th May, the government re-iterated its support for local authorities continuing to consult on plans during the pandemic and published updated guidance to assist local authorities in doing so.

The guidance can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-making#covid19

The guidance suggested that it was good practice for councils to update Statements of Community Involvement to expressly set out the different ways in which people would be included in consultations.

In following this best practice, and in consultation with the Leader, Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Planning, we have updated our Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) to expressly set out more details of our approach in light of the Government’s guidance. This will be a temporary amendment to the SCI (by way of an addendum), addressing the issues relating to social distancing restrictions.

Indefinite suspension of the consultation until lockdown measures are sufficiently eased. This was not considered to be in conformity with the Government’s message to continue plan making. The amendments to the Statement of Community Involvement and extension of the consultation period are considered to be appropriate measures to enable all those wishing to comment on the Local Plan consultation to be able to do so.