Effective Communication and Engagement
The council will strongly encourage preapplication engagement at the initial stages in the formulation of a project to identify issues early on. This will include the promotion of Planning Performance Agreements where appropriate to ensure greater clarity of the level of service and timeliness from pre-application through to delivery on site. It is expected that additional fees will be encompassed in Planning Performance Agreements.
The council and the development sector will work together as local authority funding allows with the objective of providing the necessary resources to ensure responses to pre-application enquiries are delivered in the timescale set out in the council preapplication advice.
Pre-application fees will be proportionate.
The process must be a two-way process based on respect and constructive engagement. Information submitted by developers should be treated professionally. Equally, developers must ensure that they submit sufficient, concise, relevant, and timely information, as part of the process.
Developers should take into account preapplication advice given by officers. If an application is subsequently submitted which significantly fails to meet the pre application advice, the applicant will be expected to justify why the application fails to meet the pre application advice. Failure to justify why pre-application advice has not been followed may result in a refusal of planning permission.
Developers will submit clear, evidenced, good quality pre-application enquiries and applications. This will ensure that development proposals are made with sufficient and accurate supporting information and are well-presented, enabling council officers to efficiently manage the application through the planning system for determination within the statutory or agreed period.
The council will provide agents and developers with email contact details for planning officers for all applications. Planning agents and developers can email a planning officer to request a phone call to discuss a case should there be a need to do so. There should be an indication of the points for discussion in the phone call to allow it to be as efficient as possible.
The council will ensure that Public Access (the online planning register) is kept up to date with all the relevant information, to ensure all interested parties are kept up to date with applications.
Developers and agents can where appropriate, engage with Executive Elected Members, through briefings at the preapplication stage.
Developers will engage early and openly with the community, amenity groups, neighbourhood planning forums, groups and, where relevant, town and parish councils in line with the advice from the planner and the Statement of Community Involvement, both at pre-application stage and when planning applications are made. Developers will demonstrate, in supporting documentation of any subsequent planning application, how the responses to this local engagement have been considered and have shaped the scheme.
Developers will continue to engage with the community through the implementation stage to ensure residents and relevant groups are kept informed of demolition and/or construction stages where appropriate.
Also see
Planning Enquiries
DM Business Support
