Despite the Isle of Wight council’s planning offices being closed for the first week of a three week consultation period and the council’s Website not showing relevant documents for the first week, the council say they will not formally extend the consultation period.
Residents in Ventnor and St Lawrence concerned about a planning application at the Flowersbrook beauty spot, have expressed further frustration after not being able to view all the relevant documents for at least a week.
Request to extend consultation
OnTheWight got in touch with the Isle of Wight Council to ask whether they would consider extending the consultation period by one week to allow residents the time to go through the large number of documents related to the application, thereby ensuring they were able to make fully-informed comments on the application.
Planning officers have said they will not formally extend the consultation period, but will accept material comments on the application up to the point of making a decision.
A council spokesperson told OnTheWight,
“The applicants for the onshore elements of this project have included an environmental statement that covers both the offshore and onshore elements. The planning authority (the council) is undertaking a separate screening of the onshore elements to determine if an environmental statement is necessary given the nature and scale of the onshore elements.
“If the decision is that the onshore elements for which the council is the relevant planning authority do not require an environmental statement, there would be no need to refer this application to the Planning Committee under that part of the council’s constitution.
“The council is aware of access issues to the website over the Christmas/New Year period, but currently does not consider it necessary to formally extend the consultation period. The council’s policy is that it accepts material comments on applications up to the point of making a decision and therefore a formal extension is not required.
“An investigation of the reported website problem has been undertaken, and work is continuing to resolve this issue.”
It’s unclear whether accepting the material comments up until the decision making means those comments will also be considered (given that planning committee reports are prepared a week in advance of the meeting). We’ve asked the council for clarification.
