Planning Inspectorate
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The government has published guidance about national infrastructure planning which applicants, members of the public and other parties should read. See the National Infrastructure Planning Guidance Portal. The guidance should be read alongside the Planning Act 2008 (the Planning Act).
This advice is non-statutory. However, the Planning Inspectorates advice about running the infrastructure planning system and matters of process is drawn from good practice and applicants and others should follow our recommendations. It is intended to complement the legislation, regulations and guidance issued by government and is produced under section 51 of the Planning Act.
The role of local authorities in the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project process
A proposed NSIP is a major development in the local area. Local authorities have an important role to play in the process:
- providing the applicant with a local perspective on the proposed project
- if consent is granted, they may need to monitor and enforce some parts of the Development Consent Order (DCO)
- if consent is granted they may be the authority to discharge certain requirements (like conditions attached to a planning permission), or they may act as a consultee for a requirement.
Whilst the relevant Secretary of State will decide if development consent should be granted for a NSIP application it is in the local authoritys interests to:
- proactively engage with the applicant on their proposed scheme, particularly during the pre-application stage
- take part in all the stages of the NSIP process
An overview of the process for NSIPs and a description of the people and organisations involved, including local authorities, is provided in the Planning Inspectorates Advice for members of the public - Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects and the people and organisations involved in the process. Further information on the process is provided in the governments National Infrastructure Planning Guidance.
The Planning Advisory Service(PAS) facilitates a local authority support network. PAS has developed examples of good practice. The Planning Inspectorate can put local authorities in contact with others so that they can learn about planning, resourcing, and engaging with the NSIP process.
Relevant local authorities must be consulted about a NSIP application as a statutory consultee. Section 43 of the Planning Act describes which local authorities are relevant based on the area of land included in the application. Relevant local authorities will be either host or neighbouring authorities:
- Host local authorities these are either unitary, lower-tier district or upper-tier county councils where the land included in the application falls within their administrative boundary (this can include London borough councils, Council of the Isles of Scilly, National Park authorities and Broads Authorities)
- Neighbouring authorities these are unitary, lower-tier district or upper-tier county councils that share a boundary with a host local authority.
Delegations and resourcing
The local authority should set up clear delegations early in the pre-application stage of the process. At the pre-application and acceptance stages there are different activities that are likely to need approval under the local authoritys internal governance arrangements, often within tight timescales, such as:
- scoping response (28 days)
- statement of community consultation response (28 days)
- principal areas of disagreement summary statement
- non-statutory and statutory consultation response (deadline for response provided by the applicant)
- adequacy of consultation milestone response
- adequacy of consultation representation (14 days)
At the pre-examination and examination stages there are activities that are also likely to need approval, such as:
- relevant representation (minimum 30 days)
- local impact report (early in the examination stage)
- written representation (early in the examination stage)
- responses to the Examining Authoritys written questions and requests for information
- statement of common ground (to be agreed, where possible, by the close of examination a maximum of 6 months, or 4 months for fast-track consent applications)
- DCO obligation (if appropriate)
During the pre-examination and examination stages any submissions received after a deadline may not be considered by the Examining Authority. There is unlikely to be time to seek committee approval for submissions during the examination stage.
It is important therefore that local authorities consider the level of approval required for these activities. They should arrange agreed powers at Cabinet as early as possible during the pre-application stage to enable officers to respond quickly and effectively.
The local authority should also consider their resource availability throughout the stages of the NSIP process, including cover for staff leave. They should consider what support they may need from other departments, such as legal, environmental and transport specialists, data analysts and finance.
The local authoritys role in the Environmental Impact Assessment process
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Scoping Opinion
The applicant may ask the Planning Inspectorate (who will act on behalf of the Secretary of State) for a formal written opinion about the information they should include in their Environmental Statement. This is known as a scoping opinion.
The applicant will send a scoping report to the Planning Inspectorate (known as the scoping request) which will be published on the project information page of the Find a National Infrastructure Project website. The Planning Inspectorate must adopt a scoping opinion within 42 days of receiving the scoping request.
The Planning Inspectorate will consult both host and neighbouring local authorities about the scoping report. Local authorities are asked to respond within 28 days to allow the Planning Inspectorate time to consider the responses before adopting the scoping opinion. Local authorities may need to consult other internal departments and specialists for advice on what to include in their consultation response. The response should be agreed at the appropriate level, such as the councils senior officer or project leader, in accordance with the agreed delegation arrangements. See Delegations and resourcing.
See the Planning Inspectorates advice on environmental matters for further information about EIA development and the duties of the local authority.
The applicants preparation of their Environmental Statement
If the proposed project is EIA development the applicant must include an Environmental Statement when it submits its NSIP application.
Regulation 11 of The Infrastructure Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 describes the process which consultation bodies, including local authorities, must follow to engage with the applicant when they are preparing their Environmental Statement. If the applicant makes a request to the local authority for information which they consider relevant for preparing their Environmental Statement, the local authority must discuss this with them. If the local authority holds the relevant information it must provide it to the applicant (unless it is exempted under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004).