Quarterly meeting notes are now uploaded to the NPN website here
Planning Online saved searches.
If you have signed up for saved searches by ward, you may be wondering why there are so few updates recently! The Planning Online saved search has had to be updated with new ward codes after the ward boundary changes and so you need to reset your searches to receive notifications. There is a guide about how to do this on the NPN website here or on BCC website here
BCC interactive mapping.
An interactive Local Plan Policies Map is now available on the council’s Local Plan webpage.
Clicking on the map identifies designations and allocations relating to Local Plan policies. Sites can be identified using the street / postcode search facility or by the pan and zoom functions.
Pre Application process: a reminder
Formal pre-app enquiry response to BCC
This is an opportunity to raise a few headline points with the case officer before he writes his response to a pre application enquiry.It’s likely that anyone in your groups, having a quick look at the plans, will be able to identify if there are two or three key issues that will concern the community.This is all the case officer wants just a few lines. He is not looking for a definitive response, discussed by the whole group at a meeting. The comment only goes to the case officer, not the developer.So any omissions are not serious. There is no need to comment at all; it’s just an opportunity to prompt the case officer if you want to. He will write his response anyway. NPN will alert groups to any pre app enquiry cases. Local councillors are also informed by BCC. Drawings and other information are not publicly available at this stage, except through NPN or the developer.
Pre-app community involvement with the developer. This is the opportunity to meet the developer for a full discussion. He may be able to wait until your next meeting of the group, or you may find that he wants to move faster than that. Most groups do not invite developers to their next meeting, but assign one or two members to meet the developer sooner. This is often more effective than trying to fit a consultation into a full agenda.