Statement of Community Involvement

SCI Review Consultation

The council is reviewing its Statement of Community Involvement (SCI).  The SCI is a key document in the Local Development Framework and sets out how and when the council will involve the community and other interested people and organisations in the preparation of planning policies and guidance, and also in the consideration of planning applications in Crawley.

The first stage of consultation is seeking comments on what you believe the content of the SCI should be.  This stage of consultation runs from 28th May to 25th June 2010, a further stage of consultation on the draft SCI will be undertaken in July / August 2010.

If you have any representations about what you think the contents of the SCI might be or how you want to be involved in future consultation on LDF documents and planning applications please send them either by email to Forward.plans@crawley.gov.uk or by post to Forward Planning, Crawley Borough Council, Town Hall, The Boulevard, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 1UZ.

Adopted SCI

On 13 September 2006, Council’s Executive Committee approved the SCI, which incorporated the binding changes of the Inspectors Report. Click on the link below to download a copy of the adopted SCI.

• Statement of Community Involvement (pdf, 6mb)

A hard copy of the full document is available on request from the Forward Planning Department, or can be viewed at the Town Hall (see ‘Contact Us’ box for details), and the following locations during normal office hours:

Crawley Library

County Buildings, Crawley

Broadfield Library

6 Broadfield Barton, Crawley

Submission SCI

The SCI was submitted, along with all representations received throughout all consultation stages, to the Planning Inspectorate in March 2006 for independent examination, in accordance with Section 20 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act. The Inspector then produced a binding report on the SCI in June 2005, which outlined changes that that were required to ensure that the SCI was clear in terms of the PPS12, tests of soundness. The SCI was subsequently amended to reflect the Inspectors binding report and submitted to Council’s Executive for their approval and adoption.

Consultation

In February 2005, we produced a draft SCI for Crawley Borough Council. We asked stakeholders for their comments on the contents and approaches set out in the document. Following the 6 week period of consultation, the comments received were analysed and incorporated into a second draft of the SCI.

In May 2005, a second version of the document was published, called the ‘formal community consultation’. This consultation for stakeholders and the general community asked again for comments, supporting or objecting to the document.

The comments received were assessed and alterations made to the document. The final ‘Submission Draft’ was formally submitted to the Secretary of State for consideration. A further 6 week consultation period was carried out between the 31st October and the 12th December 2005, with 20 representations to the SCI.

The main issues raised were:

• 10 of these supported the content of the SCI
• 3 objections were received to the document on the grounds that some of the consultation techniques stated are not appropriate, that the SCI is not sufficiently linked to community involvement, that resources are not available to carry out community involvement and that they do not understand technical jargon, or think that Crawley residents are not consulted on anything that matters.