The Council, as the Local Planning Authority, is required to prepare a Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) under Section 18 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (2004).
The purpose of the SCI is to set out the principles for engaging and consulting with local communities – including residents, organisations and businesses – and other interested parties on planning matters. They are statutory documents that set out how and when local authorities will involve communities (and other interested persons) in the planning process. SCIs will typically include details of how engagement will be managed in relation to the plan-making, development management and planning enforcement processes.
The Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) Regulations 2012 require local planning authorities to review their SCIs every 5 years from the adoption date. It is important that SCIs are kept up to date to ensure effective community involvement at all stages of the planning process.
Statement of Community Involvement Update – 2022
As part of the process of periodically updating the SCI in 2019, the Council proposed a number of minor changes to the SCI to reflect a number of minor textual amendments that are required to ensure that the provisions within the SCI remain accurate, appropriate and achievable. Further updates were proposed in 2021 to reflect a number of provisions required to mitigate impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic. These changes were consulted on in July-September 2021 and amendments made, based on the feedback received.
The Statement of Community Involvement 2022 was adopted at a meeting of Full Council on 25 October 2022. It is available to view in Related Content, along with a feedback report that summarises the results of the consultation held in Autumn 2021.