Issue - meetings

Report of the Leader

RESOLVED THAT

1. the updated Statement of Community Involvement be approved for public consultation
2. authority be delegated to the Head of Planning to make any consequential minor amendments to the document

The Leader of the Council introduced the report and explained that the Council was legally required to prepare and adopt a Statement of Community Involvment (SCI), the purpose of which was to set out the opportunities by which the public and organisations can engage with the planning system. As a result of changes to legislation it was now necessary to revise the existing SCI which had been adopted in 2006.

The Leader highlighted that at this stage the document was not being submitted to Council and therefore he proposed this as an amendment to the second recommendation. Accordingly, references to Council should be deleted from paragraph 4.3 of the report. The Leader also gave details of minor amendments to the SCI as follows :

• Paragraph 11.3-Parish councils now receive electronic copies of documents and it is proposed that the consultation period for Parish Councils is aligned to that for other consultees, i.e. 21 days.
• Paragraph 11.2 significant applications are now defined
• Paragraph 11.27-those people who have written comments on applications no longer receive a letter after the committee meeting
• Changes to names of local groups and some deletion of groups had occurred since the last publication of the SCI, amendments will be made prior to the new version being made available for public consultation

Members supported the recommendations and highlighted the crucial role consultation played in the formation of the Joint Core Strategy and the Cheltenham Plan.

The Head of Legal Services clarified that once consultation had taken place and responses gathered the final recommendations would need to be submitted to Council for approval.

RESOLVED THAT

1. the updated Statement of Community Involvement be approved for public consultation
2. authority be delegated to the Head of Planning to make any consequential minor amendments to the document