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MODERNISING PUBLIC LOCAL INQUIRIES:
DIGEST OF RESPONSES TO CONSULTATION PAPER

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Contents

General comments
Question 1: To improve operation of public local inquiry process should focus be on time, cost, level of certainty, need to make public involvement easier or on other matters?
Question 2: Should public local inquiries into planning proposals be re-named "planning inquiries"?
Question 3: Should the right to a planning appeal inquiry or hearing be further qualified? If so Option 1, 2 or 3?
Question 4: Where appeal lodged against non-determination, should planning authority be required to indicate whether they would have granted/refused application within 2 weeks of appeal being lodged?
Question 5: Should incomplete appeals be rejected and returned to the appellant?
Question 6: Should maximum period for production of full statement of case be reduced from 8 weeks to 4 weeks?
Question 7: Are there other ways of shortening the essential pre-inquiry stages?
Question 8: Requirement to register intention to lead oral evidence by a specified date and disclosure of case in advance?
Question 9: Do you share view that pre-inquiry process does not allow sufficient time for proper preparation? If so, why?
Question 10: Once statements of case lodged should Scottish Ministers give more explicit guidance on the essential issues they wish addressed in the inquiry?
Question 11: Should Scottish Ministers indicate material that must be considered by the appellant/applicant and the planning authority to identify areas of agreement and disagreement and be lodged as inquiry documents?
Question12: Should Scottish Ministers set time limit on sisted appeals, so that these expire if case not brought to planning inquiry within 6 months of date of sist?
Question 13: Should Scottish Ministers recover their own costs and costs of others where appeal party fails to proceed, or appeal is withdrawn, once the inquiry arrangements have been made?
Question 14: Should preliminary argument be ruled out at opening of a planning inquiry?
Question 15: Should time at planning inquiry be programmed more rigorously in advance and parties held to that programme?
Question 16: Do you consider it necessary for Scottish Ministers to set more inquisitorial role for reporters?
Question 17: Should hearings practice be imported to planning inquiries? Does this suggest that statutory procedure rules are required for hearings?
Question 18: Should existing Inquiries Procedure Rules be amended to make it clear that scope to request that reporter takes account of new material after planning inquiry closed is strictly limited to change in provisions of development plan?
Question 19: Do you consider that hearings format represents suitable means of examining objections to strategic development plans?
Question 20: Do you agree that process of development planning would be improved by requiring planning authorities to reduce objections through negotiation and mediation before calling local plan inquiry (LPI); by adopting hearing format as norm for all LPIs; and by applying other relevant improvements in practice contained in this consultation? Other suggestions for improvements?
Question 21: Should inquiries into planning appeals and called-in applications be dealt with separately from LPIs and from public examination of objections to strategic and local development plans?
Question 22: Views on other options not covered by paper that could help to make public local inquiries less adversarial but allow them to remain just as robust as means of taking decisions on major planning proposals.
Additional matters raised by respondents to the consultation

• The consultation paper, Modernising Public Local Inquiries was issued in July 2003.
• This digest of responses has been prepared for the Scottish Executive by Professor Mark Poustie to help improve access to the detailed responses received.
• The aim has been to reproduce the essence of the comments fairly, grouping the material by the main stakeholder groups and the consultation questions.
• Inevitably views on some issues may be dispersed across more than one section.
• In preparing this digest every effort has been made to avoid errors of transcription, meaning, attribution, omission or otherwise and apologies are offered for any that have occurred.
• The views expressed in this digest are those of the respondents and do not necessarily represent those of the Department or the Scottish Ministers.
• References to paragraph numbers which appear in the headings used within some responses are references to paragraph numbers in the Consultation Paper.

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