News Overview

Sky Properties' response to commentary on Green Lane consultation

In a recent posting on its website, the local opposition group's spokesman Hani El Qasem demonstrates a misunderstanding of consultation and the planning process in an effort to undermine the extensive efforts made by Sky Properties to inform and consult local residents and key stakeholder groups in the development of the proposals for the Green Lane Eco Park.

In Salford Council's Statement of Community Involvement (SCI), which provides guidance on how local people and groups should be involved in planning issues, the council encourages applicants to undertake pre-application discussions with them (the Council) prior to the submission of a planning application. The Council also recommends developers engage with the local community that could be affected by a development and consult with any organisation whose input will be sought following an application's formal submission to the city council (the latter often referred to as "statutory consultees"). It is a requirement that statutory consultees are consulted. Other consultation, whilst strongly recommended, may not be a legal requirement, depending on the nature and scale of the project. However, responsible developers see extending consultation as good practice and part of their responsibility as a good neighbour, and thoroughness ensures legal as well as best practice compliance for any project.

The SCI also notes that the Council may advise developers to carry out a community engagement exercise. It goes on to state that such an exercise will be used to raise awareness of any local issues and will also allow an opportunity for developers to communicate the details and benefits of the proposed development. It lists the types of community involvement tools that may be used, and it is worth noting that Sky proactively offered to carry out a community engagement exercise prior to submitting a planning application that met or exceeded the recommendations set out in the Council's SCI. The Council's advice and guidance provides a list of tools that include the following, all of which were incorporated into the pre-application information and consultation exercise:

• circulating a specially prepared leaflet;
• arranging an exhibition and inviting local people;
• arranging a press release or advertisement in local newspapers;
• arranging public meetings;
• arranging a meeting with community groups;

Developers should also:

• make ward councilllors aware of the proposals and the process;
• keep a record of the process and submit a statement of community involvement alongside the planning application.

Sky engaged consultants to assist in the process of community engagement, in order to ensure the views of local residents could be heard and wherever possible acted upon. Sky offered to set up a community liaison group, with support from local MP Hazel Blears, a best practice option for waste and other industrial developments that enables a small number of local community representatives to discuss detailed and often complex issues relating to proposals. However its efforts were thwarted due to the insistence by a small number of local people who claim to represent the local community that the meetings must be public meetings and open to anyone to attend. Quite apart from the logistical difficulties in managing such a process, this was judged to be unhelpful based on the experience of the public meeting held in January where representatives of Sky Properties were prevented from providing information about the proposals in response to questions about the planning application. A smaller group, representative of local views, could have worked through more of the detail relating to local traffic impacts, routing agreements, and local community benefit including improvements to local roads. It was offered to record these meetings to ensure complete transparency and accessibility, but this was not good enough for one or two local community representatives.

It is a shame that this best practice initiative was blocked by a small number of opponents, who instead continue to promote misinformation and mislead local residents. This includes the latest missive relating to consultation, where Mr El Qasem refers to National Policy Statements which do indeed require developers to carry out substantial consultation prior to submission of a planning application (in fact, a similar level to that carried out by Sky for the Green Lane Eco Park proposals), but do not apply to the Green Lane proposals. He fails to note that National Policy Statements relate to infrastructure projects of national significance, and for energy from waste projects refer to schemes that produce over 50MW of electricity (if permitted Green Lane Eco Park would produce up to 10MW of electricity). Applications on this scale are made to the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) which was set up by then-Communities Secretary and current local MP Hazel Blears. It is interesting to note that whilst greater consultation is required by these schemes, the planning decision is not made by the local planning authority but by the IPC (now being absorbed back into Central Government in the interests of improving political accountability). The Green Lane proposals are of a much smaller scale, and as such remain a decision for the local Council as the democratically accountable planning authority.

Sky Properties met with Councillor Antrobus and the planners, a meeting which was also attended by Hazel Blears and Mr El Qasem, where Cllr Antrobus commended the approach to consultation undertaken by Sky Properties. He said as minuted, ‘The approach Sky Properties have undertaken with regard to pre-application consultation was welcomed, and it has enabled the engagement of the local community in advance of the submission of an application.’

Of course, the Council is obliged to consult local residents on planning applications and their SCI sets out how it should do this.

Anyone who is interested in finding out more about the proposals, or would like to read about the extensive community engagement activities carried out by Sky in advance of submitting the planning application, can click here.

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