Engaging councillors and communities in pre-application discussions

Active involvement of both councillors and communities at the earliest stages of a development project is important to both improving the quality of the resultant scheme and in reducing potential delays.

Why? Because:

1. Local authority councillors are active civic leaders who have goals and aspirations for their area which they want to make happen. Their role in pre-application discussions gives them the opportunity to ensure that new development meets those aspirations.

2. Planning applications for the most significant developments are mostly determined through a democratic process at planning committee. These decisions are made by the elected representatives of the local community, not by officers.

3. Communities all over England are demonstrating their ability to take far reaching positive decisions about the type of development they want to see in their communities through neighbourhood planning. These communities are showing their capacity to consider development constructively and to work with developers and landowners to influence development in a way that is far removed from passive consultation.

4. The involvement of communities is critical to the success of the development planning system. This is reinforced in the National Planning Policy Framework (the Framework) where it states at para 66:

“Applicants will be expected to work closely with those directly affected by their proposals to evolve designs that take account of the views of the community. Proposals that can demonstrate this in developing the design of the new development should be looked on more favourably”

(see also Article 3A of the DMPO in which prospective applicants are legally required to carry out pre-application discussion with the local community for some kinds of wind turbine projects).

Associates or employees of the Community Communications Partnership who also serve as members of decision-making public bodies (including local authority councillors) are prohibited from working on assignments of which the objective is to influence a decision of the body on which they serve. Where members employ, or are, public affairs practitioners who serve as members of decision-making public bodies, those individuals must have no involvement in advising on or supporting work that relates to those bodies, either directly or indirectly.