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PROTECT WYRE GROUP
In last month’s article we stated that PWG would be meeting with the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) and this indeed happened on 5th October. The meeting took place at County Hall in Preston and was chaired by Sir Michael Pitt (IPC Commissioner) and had other attendees from the IPC together with attendees from Halite Gas Storage, Lancashire CC, Wyre BC, Fylde BC, Blackpool BC, Protect Wyre Group, Health and Safety Executive, Environment Agency and Mr & Mrs Jackson (Stalmine).
The openness of the IPC was stressed from the outset and we were assured that there would be no ‘closed door’ meetings or letters ‘written in confidence’ – everything connected with IPC’s involvement with this scheme would be published on their website for all to read. At this stage the IPC will only comment on the structure of their decision making process and on procedural matters. They will not be commenting upon the actual application until later in the process.
Sir Michael Pitt gave a brief overview of their decision making process and then invited Halite to announce their anticipated timetable of events. This was greeted (by us) with some surprise as they said they intended to submit a Statement of Community Consultation (SOCC) and a Scoping Report to the IPC during October.
The production of the SOCC is a departure from previous planning application actions insomuch as the production of the SOCC is now a statutory duty placed upon the applicant (namely Halite) and its publication will be publicised in the local press. As part of the SOCC, Halite must provide sufficient information about the project and about its perceived impact upon the community. It must also encourage constructive participation between the developer and the community and they (Halite) must be able to show how they have reacted and taken on board the comments and suggestions from the community. Halite must also provide public access to a full set of consultation documents locally, they should organise local events, within a given timescale, to promote and explain the proposed scheme and they should facilitate interactive workshops, etc., where appropriate. The public can then make direct contact with Halite to comment on what they have seen, heard or read about, again within the given and defined timescale. The formal consultation period and the exhibitions are planned for the end of January with a view to the application being submitted by the end of March 2011.
In the previous applications, the scheme’s developer and the scheme’s opponents submitted independent, usually somewhat adversarial, views to the planning authority or the planning inspector for their consideration. This time the emphasis is on inquisitorial as opposed to adversarial and thus any ‘late evidence’ or perceived ‘trump cards’ might not be considered as evidence by the Commissioner if he or she thinks that they could have been voiced and discussed earlier. To this end PWG has asked for a full set of documents from Halite prior to a meeting with them to discuss the same and this has been pencilled in for early November.
If you, as a member of the public, wish to make comments or suggestions to Halite during the forthcoming period of community consultation then please feel free to do so but do note that if you are in opposition to the scheme, your comments to Canatxx/Halite are exactly that! A separate letter of opposition needs to be sent to the IPC later in the process.
We have an anomaly that awaits clarification because the IPC rules state that anyone wishing to make comments to them about a scheme has to pre-register their interest with the IPC. PWG argued that it was an unrealistic expectation for all those wishing to write to them in opposition should have to write separately to register their interest, bearing in mind the thousands of communications that this would generate. Internet pre-registration was suggested but we pointed out that this could disadvantage certain sections of the community. The whole pre-registration process and the inherent problems we raised met with some sympathy and we await a definite answer to the situation from the IPC. In any event you cannot register before the application has been submitted to the IPC and accepted by them so nothing to get excited about just yet.
Ian Mulroy (Chair PWG)
Howard Phillips (Vice Chair PWG / Chair TAG)
www.pwgroup.org.uk
http://infrastructure.independent.gov.uk
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