The County Council must produce a 'Statement of Community Involvement' (SCI) to explain how it will engage the community in the production of its plans. Initial consultation on the SCI took place in January 2005, and further six-week periods of consultation on a revised draft version was undertaken with a range of organisations between April and June 2005 and August and September 2005. The comments and views from consultees who responded were considered and, where judged relevant and appropriate, incorporated in the submission version of the SCI.
This final version of the SCI was submitted to the Secretary of State for independent examination in October 2005. Before the examination took place, there was a six-week consultation period (from 10 October to 21 November 2005) for any representations to be made on whether the SCI failed any of the nine 'soundness' tests set out in paragraph 3.10 of Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 12: Local Development Frameworks.
Ten representations were received during the six-week period, and these representations and the County Council's response to them were passed on to the Inspector to be considered alongside the County Council's submission documentation. Several objectors subsequently submitted further material in support of their representations, and the County Council responded to these further submissions (attachments 7 & 8 below).
Following the examination, the Inspector's binding report was received on 12th April 2006 (attachment 9 below). The Inspector made 15 recommendations, 14 of which necessitated textual changes to the SCI. The County Council's Cabinet approved the SCI for adoption at its meeting on 16 May 2006 (attachment 1 below).
Alongside the SCI itself are four supporting documents, detailing the results of the initial pre-submission consultation (Regulation 25 stage), pre-submission public participation (Regulation 26 stage), the nine representations received on the submission SCI, and Suffolk County Council's response to these representations:
- Adopted Statement of Community Involvement (PDF, 551.4 Kb)
- Regulation 25 consultation results and analysis (PDF, 163 Kb)
- Regulation 26 consultation results and analysis (PDF, 177 Kb)
- Representation form for submission version SCI (PDF, 19 Kb)
- The ten SCI submission version representations (PDF, 402 Kb)
- The County Council's response to these representations (PDF, 22 Kb)
- Further submitted material (PDF, 82 Kb)
- The County Council's response to his additional material (PDF, 85 Kb)
- The Inspector's Report (PDF, 32 Kb)
