Agenda item

Purpose: To ask Members to approve the draft updated Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) for public consultation.

The Council considered a report (Agenda Item 14) which sought approval of the draft updated Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) for public consultation.

MOTION: Proposed by Councillor Hilary Cole and seconded by Councillor Alan Law:

That the Council resolves:

“to approve the draft updated SCI for public consultation”.

Councillor Hilary Cole outlined the report and stated that the SCI set out the policy for involving the community in the plan making process and the consideration of planning applications within the district. Councillor Hilary Cole explained that in accordance with the Town and Country Planning Regulations 2017, the SCI must be reviewed every five years. As the current SCI was published in September 2014, a review was now required.

Council noted that the current SCI worked well. Therefore, only minor changes would be necessary as a result of the review, mainly to take into account changes in legislation and national planning policies, and some other factual updates. A revised draft SCI (June 2019) was attached at Appendix D to the report.

Councillor Hilary Cole reported that the Council’s approach to the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) had not changed; it was now set out in the Council’s Planning Obligations Supplementary Planning Document. In addition, as the Council now offered a pre-application advice service for all planning applications, it was no longer necessary to have a separate section in the SCI on significant applications.

The consultation period for the review would take place over six weeks from 12^th July to 23^rd August 2019. The revised SCI, post taking account of consultation responses, would then be considered by Council in December 2019.

Councillor Tony Linden reported that the revised draft SCI (Appendix D) referred to Wokingham District Council rather than the correct title of Wokingham Borough Council. Councillor Alan Macro highlighted other inaccuracies and a proof read was necessary prior to the commencement of consultation.

Councillor Macro said that given that not all residents had access to the internet, planning documents should be available in libraries in hard copy for the public. Councillor Graham Bridgman made the point that internet access was available to members of the public in libraries rather than needing hard copies.

Councillor Tony Vickers said that he was happy to support the consultation. However, Councillor Vickers said he regretted some of the changes that had taken place since the last review which meant that not all documentation relevant to planning applications was available on the website.

(Councillor Billy Drummond joined the meeting at 7.15pm).

Councillor Vickers asked Sarah Clarke, Monitoring Officer, to comment on the changes that had taken place. Sarah Clarke stated that whilst she did not have the necessary information to hand, her understanding was that the Council was fully compliant with its duties to publish planning application information. Sarah Clarke offered to follow this up outside of the meeting if needed.

Councillor Alan Law said that he fully supported the proposal to approve the draft updated SCI for public consultation. Councillor Law went on to suggest that the valid points raised by his fellow Councillors should be fed into the consultation process. On the matter of documentation published or not on the website, he felt that specific examples should be provided to Officers to investigate further.

Councillor Hilary Cole gave thanks for the comments received. She concluded by saying that the decision to not include planning documents in libraries, provide hard copies to parishes and other similar changes had been taken as part of a saving presented to and agreed by Council in 2017.

The Motion was put to the meeting and duly RESOLVED.