Issue - meetings

1.     That the draft revised Statement of Community Involvement annexed to this report be agreed and authority be delegated to the Assistant Director, Planning, Development and Regeneration to make any final minor editorial and typographical revisions to the document including any necessary to reflect the Cabinet’s discussions and decision prior to approval by Council

2.    RESOLVED TO RECOMMEND that Council adopts the revised Statement of Community Involvement

Decision

That:

1.     the draft revised Statement of Community Involvement annexed to this report be agreed and authority be delegated to the Assistant Director, Planning, Development and Regeneration to make any final minor editorial and typographical revisions to the document including any necessary to reflect the Cabinet’s discussions and decision prior to approval by Council

2.     RESOLVED TO RECOMMEND that Council adopts the revised Statement of Community Involvement

The Council’s Local Plan (of which the SCI forms one of the documents) helps support all 5 corporate objectives:

·         Safe and clean environment: e.g. contains policies relating to the design and layout of new development that promote security and safe access;

·         Community Capacity: e.g. provide a framework for local communities to prepare area-specific guidance such as Neighbourhood Plans, Town / Village Plans etc.;

·         Affordable housing: e.g. sets the Borough’s overall housing target and the proportion of new homes that must be affordable;

·         Dacorum delivers:  e.g. provides a clear framework upon which planning decisions can be made; and

·         Regeneration: e.g. sets the planning framework for key regeneration projects, such as Hemel Hempstead town centre and the Maylands Business Park.

Monitoring Officer

The SCI should help to ensure that the views of relevant stakeholders are taken into account in the statutory plan making and planning decision-making process, which improve the quality and consistency of those decisions and reduce legal challenges.

Deputy Section 151 Officer

There are no direct financial implications.

Advice

Councillor G Sutton introduced this item and said it forms a very important part of the future working of DBC. This will include the local plan and corporate objectives.

C Taylor said the council have an obligation to review this document every two years. This has been out to consultation.

Councillor Tindall said consultations can be crucial. He asked if it was possible to ask Communications to make consultation notices more user friendly and add more links to relevant documents and enhance the visualisation. It is likely to put people off and less people will respond.

C Taylor said a lot of lessons have been learnt from the Issues & Options consultation. Moving forward, this will be a better process which is more streamlined and one that is easier to analyse the results.

The recommendations were agreed.