Issue - meetings

The Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) was adopted at Council on 16 July 2019. During the debate, some amendments to the document were tabled. It was agreed that officers would consider if the proposed amendments should be made to the newly adopted SCI.  This report assesses the proposed amendments and makes recommendations as to whether the adopted SCI should be changed.

Recommendation

That the Executive agrees that no further changes are required to the Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) for the reasons set out in the report.

.

23.1     Cllr Andy MacLeod introduced the report that reviewed the amendments to the Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) that had been proposed by Cllr Hyman at the Full Council meeting on 16 July 2019. The SCI had been adopted on 16 July, but it had been agreed that Cllr Hyman’s proposals should be considered, with revisions brought back to Full Council.

23.2     In addition to some proposed formatting changes which had already been carried out to the published document, the amendments proposed: that the SCI relate to the current adopted local plan period; a need for consultation on the SCI itself; and that the SCI should include text setting out the assistance that the Council would give to neighbourhood plan groups who are modifying their neighbourhood plans. 

23.3    Cllr MacLeod reported that it was not considered necessary to change the adopted SCI with regard to these requested changes.  Firstly, the SCI related to the preparation of local plans in general rather than specifically to the adopted Waverley Local Plan.  Secondly, there was not a legal requirement to consult on the SCI itself and given that the SCI was about how the Council engages with its communities on planning issues there was no need to consult on the document.  Finally, the Council gave assistance to those towns and parishes that are preparing neighbourhood plans, and part of that assistance was to support towns and parishes that wished to modify their neighbourhood plans after they had been agreed.  An example of this was the support that this Council had given to the review of the Farnham Neighbourhood Plan. The matter of supporting neighbourhood plans was set out in general in the SCI, and there was no need to be explicit in it on the help that will be given to towns and parishes modifying neighbourhood plans.

23.4     Therefore having considered the proposed amendments there was no need to amend the adopted SCI at this stage to incorporate these changes. Cllr MacLeod advised that he proposed to amend the recommendation, to ask the Executive to recommend to Council that no further changes were required to the SCI.

23.5     Cllr Jerry Hyman was disappointed that his points had not been accepted, especially with regard to the requirement for the Council to provide assistance to towns and parishes that wished to modify their neighbourhood plans. Whilst he recognised that Waverley had assisted Farnham with the modification of its Neighbourhood Plan, he maintained that the SCI was required to refer to this explicitly, and the outcome was wholly unsatisfactory.

23.6     The Executive RESOLVED to RECOMMEND to Council that no further changes were required to the Statement of Community Involvement, for the reasons set out in the report.

Reason: To enable Council to make a decision on the need for further revisions to the Statement of Community Involvement.