RDC should respond to the 941 representations that were made on the core strategy (Sept - November 2009), and not ignore the representations made by the public. RDC have also submitted a document entitled Statement of community involvement as part of their evidence base.
Page 10, box 3 is this is entitled "How the council will encourage the involvement of all communities in planning". It says:
- Providing feedback as to how people's views have been taken into account and have influenced the decision making process.
- Having officers available to speak to during office hours who can provide information and answer questions on planning.
Not one word of the draft core strategy was changed as a result of the 941 representations that were made before it was submitted to the secretary of state. RDC have also produced a document entitled "consultation statement" as part of their evidence base. Not one of the 941 representations made are responded to in this document either. The inspector has indicated that it is for RDC to respond to representations made, not the inspectorate. RDC has indicated that it will not respond to the representations that have been made either.
The core strategy that has been submitted to the secretary of state has not been developed by RDC using their own statement of community involvement policies and is therefore unsound.
Providing RDC with feedback on this document appears to be a completely pointless exercise as RDC will not provide a response. What is the point of spending our local council tax encoraging the local community to contribute only to ignore the feedback that has been provided? I have raised this as a formal complaint with RDC.
I believe that RDC ignoring the representations that have been made is a disgrace, and makes a mockery of any fine words detailed in the statement of community involvement. RDC have produced a plan that they want, and will implement it, regardless of any representations that are made by the public. Local democracy in action.