The SCI describes how and when we intend to involve local communities in planning for the future of the borough
Adopted Statement of Community Involvement (SCI)
We formally adopted the Statement of Community Involvement on 15 June 2017. This can be viewed below:
What is the SCI?
The Statement of Community Involvement is a ‘code of practice’. It describes how and when we intend to involve local communities in planning for the future of the borough through:
- the preparation of the Local Plan and other planning policy documents; and
- the determination of planning applications
Planning legislation sets out a number of legal requirements about consultation on planning policy documents and planning applications. The SCI sets out how we'll meet these requirements, along with the additional activities we'll undertake to involve people in the planning system.
The Localism Act 2011 also sets out a ‘duty to co-operate’. This is a requirement that we engage with neighbouring councils and other statutory bodies to consider joint approaches to plan-making. We're committed to meeting this duty, and intend to work closely with neighbouring authorities, other partner organisations and stakeholders.
Previous consultation
The review of our SCI took into account the changes in legislation and policy since we adopted the current SCI in 2006.
The draft revised SCI was subject to a period of six weeks consultation.
The consultation ran from 6 February 2017 to 20 March 2017 (5PM).
What we did with the comments received
The comments received were taken into consideration, and informed the adopted version of the new SCI, and:
- we would like to thank everyone who took part
- we analysed the comments received
- these were reported to Cabinet and Council
To view the comments which were received on the draft revised SCI, please visit our consultation portal. Here you can login or register to view submissions. The document can be found by clicking on the ‘supporting documents’ tab.
Draft Local Plan review
As part of the draft local plan review consultation, we are also consulting on an amendment to the SCI. This relates to providing more detail on how we'll assist those communities who wish to prepare a neighbourhood plan for their area. This will help ensure that the SCI covers this in accordance with the Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017.
The proposed amendment can be found within the supporting documents to the consultation.