Forum topic: Council consulting on community involvement in planning

[Original article]

Like it or not this is an important document which explains how residents can get involved in planning processes, and how financial levies on developments are made and how they can be used to benefit the community.

However, it's not obvious to me how significantly the latest version has been modified. It would have helped if there had been a summary of these changes.

One of the most useful sections (para 1.7) explains the meaning of key terms behind interactions with the council such as "consulting" defined as" asking for your thoughts and opinions, listening to and acknowledging your concerns and aspirations, and providing feedback on how your input has influenced our decisions".

It's perhaps more limited than might be thought, and doesn't go as far as "involving"(where possible, working with you when designing and developing services to ensure that your concerns and aspirations are properly reflected), or "collaborating" (where appropriate, working in partnership with you when making decisions, seeking your advice and innovation when developing services and utilising your skills and expertise when delivering them.) I won't go in to "empowering"!

The paras on section 106 payments and the Community Infrastructure Levy, though quite complicated are required reading if you want to understand where payments and levys on developments which might then be used to benefit the community comes from and can be used. I don't think that I had seen a reference to the Enfield Neighbourhood Fund before. This benefits from 15% of any section 106 payments (see para 2.7.12).

What I can't see in the redraft is a reference to the Enfield Compact which set out "a code of practice to develop effective ways of joint working across the voluntary, community and statutory sectors." Has it been ditched?