a)            Petition for SDC to explain its failure to supply information

The Lead Petitioner, Mrs Frances White, had submitted and e-petition with signatures in the following terms:

‘SDC to explain

- why the community was not informed about the consultation for the Draft Local Plan by letters marked 'Important' posted to 'The Householder', as with communications re Planning Permission

- why such a short time period, mostly during the holiday period, was given for the consultation

- why community representatives, including Parish Councils, were not made aware of it in good time, especially given the summer break.’

The lead petitioner, addressed the council in support of the petition.

The Leader responded that the process for reviewing the local plan commenced in 2015 when work began on preparing the evidence base documents.  Since then updates had been taken to each Planning Advisory Committee meeting, totalling eleven reports. All town and parish councils had been sent a link to the committee papers.  A series of place-making workshops had been held in 2016 and 2017 with local representatives, including town and parish councils, to understand their priorities and local knowledge at an early stage in the process.

The Issues and Options consultation ran from August-October 2017.  The statutory period for the consultation was 6 weeks, however the Council ran it for 9 weeks, and directly notified: each household; every town and parish council; amenity and civic societies; infrastructure providers; other statutory consultees; all Members; and our adjoining authorities including the County Council.  A dedicated Local Plan version of the Council’s ‘In Shape’ magazine was sent to every household in the District, together with a questionnaire.  The Council received over 15,000 responses (which represented 30% of households). This was the greatest level of response ever received to a Sevenoaks District Council (SDC) consultation, and far exceeded the expected (15-20%) level of response.

Each response was carefully considered and update reports taken back to the Planning Advisory Committee.

Following that the Council ran a further, optional, non-statutory consultation in the summer for 8 weeks, directly notifying all householders again via ‘In Shape’, as well as the previous long list of other consultees.  Nine drop in sessions were held, social media used widely, schools attended and railway stations visited to catch commuters.  The Council also held press briefings and contributed to media stories.  8500 responses were received to this additional non-statutory consultation.

But the Council was still in the process.  The draft Local Plan would be reported to the Planning Advisory Committee on Thursday, then to Cabinet on 6 December.  If approved, there would be a further consultation. The ‘Regulation 19’ version of the Plan would be published for a 6-week period at the end of this year and running into 2019. All responses to this consultation will be submitted to the Secretary of State alongside the Local Plan and evidence base in Spring 2019. The Plan would then be examined by a Planning Inspector.  From this examination the Planning Inspector would decide whether the plan was sound and could be adopted by Sevenoaks District Council.

The process was and would continue to be entirely transparent, recognising the value SDC placed on engagement and the involvement of our communities.

As ward member for Hartley & Hodsell Street, Cllr Gaywood concurred with the thoughts of Mrs White and criticised the Leader for not personally approaching the public and having personal involvement with the public.  He was generally critical of the whole process.

The Leader responded that he would reflect on feedback, and pointed out that he had visited any local communities that had requested it, for example he had been to Halstead twice.  He advised that this was the Draft Local Plan and that additional consultation over and above the statutory minimum had already been carried out.  There was to be even more consultation, and finally on submission anyone could still feed their comments straight to the Planning Inspectorate.  He reported that a neighbouring authority had gone straight to Regulation 19 consultation with the public only receiving a 6-week consultation window which if missed meant that they could only go straight to the Planning Inspectorate. 

The Portfolio Holder for Planning, Cllr Piper, pointed out that all Members and the public had had a chance to be involved which was proven by the higher than usual response rate.  The Council had to remain neutral and consider and consult during the exercise and respect that both the public and developers had rights.  It had been a joint exercise and should not be personalised.

Resolved: That the petition and the Leader’s response, be noted.