Statement of Community Involvement

Statement of Community Involvement (2025)

Public consultation on the draft Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) has now closed.

Summary

The Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) is a statutory document that sets out how and when the Council will carry out consultation and effectively engage in carrying out its planning duties.

The SCI is primarily concerned with community involvement in:

• the preparation of council planning policy and supplementary planning documents
• neighbourhood plan support and processes, and
• the consideration of planning applications.

Following public consultation from Monday, 8 September to Monday, 20 October 2025, the Council's Executive Committee formally adopted an updated SCI on 2 December 2025.

A copy of the revised SCI (2025) plus adoption statement can be found below.

• Statement of Community Involvement (2025-30) (5 Mb)
• SCI Adoption Statement (95 Kb)

Previous Statement of Community Involvement - now superseded

On 6 November 2018 the Council's Executive Committee approved the SCI (2018) as Council policy which can be found below.

Impact of Covid-19 on consultation events

From January 2021 to 31 December 2021, the Council issued a temporary suspension notice of parts of the SCI in respect of publicity of planning documents as part of the Covid-19 crisis. During this period the Council was not able to make hard copies of consultation documents available within deposit locations due to the risks associated with Covid-19. All consultation documents were made available online.

This change in procedure was supported by the Government's temporary changes to relevant planning regulations introduced in 2020. The Temporary Suspension Notice was further revoked by the Council.

Please refer to the SCI - Temporary Suspension Notice - January 2021 for further details.

•  Revised Statement of Community Involvement 2018 (2 Mb)
•  Archive: SCI - Temporary Suspension Notice – January 2021 (87 Kb)