Letter written to: Katy Bourne OBE, Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner
and copied to: Jo Shiner, Chief Constable Sussex Police
Planning neighbour letters and site notices – information from SDNPA
As a planning service, and given the current pandemic, our staff are not generally posting site notices themselves. However we are asking applicants to post their own site notices and provide photographic proof that this has been done. On a few occasions Chichester District Council (CDC) staff have posted the site notice where the applicant was unable to do so and where they were able to observe social distancing.
Regarding neighbour notification letters the SDNPA are currently sending such letters but CDC are not. This is their decision to take and it is a decision we, in light of the many difficulties inherent in the current situation, respect. It is not practicable for CDC officers to send these letters from home as CDC sends many hundreds of neighbour letters each month and officers do not have the printing capabilities to facilitate this remotely.
Neighbour notification letters are not required by law, provided that a site notice is posted. Therefore CDC’s actions are in line with legislative requirements. That said CDC’s position will be revisited as soon as circumstances allow and rest assured that CDC (and ourselves) are keen to see a return to ‘normal’ ASAP. In the meantime Rogate Parish Council will continue to receive a copy of our ‘weekly list’ which details all planning applications received in your parish. It is also possible for the Parish Council, or any member of the public, to register on our website and set up an area of search within which they want to be notified of submitted planning applications (when an application is submitted within this area they receive an electronic alert). It is possible to register a search area by postcode, parish, ward or even by drawing a custom search area of up to 500m. To access this function one must register at the following link: planning link – register for area
Planning applications due to be considered at our next meeting are on our planning applications page
