Purpose

To determine how stakeholders and the community will be involved in the preparation of Planning Policy documents.

Decision

The Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) was a protocol for how local authorities would engage with their communities in the preparation of Local Development Documents (LDDs) such as local and neighbourhood plans, and the consideration of planning applications and planning enforcement matters.

The SCI was a document that the Council were required by law to produce and keep up to date to ensure effective community involvement at all stages in the planning process. The current Buckinghamshire SCI was adopted in December 2021 and officers had taken the opportunity to update it to reflect the current position with the Local Plan for Buckinghamshire (LP4B), and in the light of the recently confirmed government deadline that local plans prepared under the existing plan-making system must be submitted for examination no later than December 2026.

No changes were proposed to the sections in the adopted SCI on neighbourhood planning and enforcement matters. Changes were being proposed to the planning application section specifically in relation to the Council no longer publishing some planning application representations on its website.

RESOLVED that the revised Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) be adopted.