The Partnership Board is the regional planning body and local planning authorities in the South East (district or borough councils and county councils for minerals and waste matters) have a duty to consult us on planning applications that have a regional significance.

For contact details, see Where should I send a regionally-significant planning application?

What is a regionally-significant planning application?

1. A development that would, due to its scale, nature or the location of the land, be of major importance for the implementation of the South East Plan.

2. A development of a description in relation to which the Partnership Board has given notice in writing to the local planning authority that it wishes to be consulted.

For further details, see Where can I find more information?

Why should the Partnership Board be consulted?

The Partnership Board is consulted to ensure that regionally-significant planning applications reflect the policies and principles of the South East Plan (published May 2009), which is the region’s spatial strategy.

The Plan is important because, alongside local development frameworks, it forms a planning authority’s development plan. Decisions on planning applications are based on development plans (unless there is sufficient justification not to).

What is the procedure?

Local planning authorities in the South East should consult the Partnership Board on all regionally-significant planning applications. Once we receive full details of a planning application, we have 21 days to respond.

Responses are normally dealt with under delegation by the director of planning, unless the planning application is particularly high profile and/or raises significant issues relating to the implementation of the South East Plan. These applications are considered by a sub-group of the Partnership Board’s Planning Panel.

As a result of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act (2009), from 1 April 2010 the Partnership Board will no longer be the regional planning body. After this date the South East England Leaders’ Board and the South East England Development Agency will be the statutory consultees, so local planning authorities should continue to consult both the Partnership Board and SEEDA on regionally-significant planning applications.

The Act states that the South East Plan will continue to be the South East’s regional strategy, alongside the Regional Economic Strategy, until both documents are replaced by a new regional strategy (around 2013). Only the South East Plan, however, will form part of the development plan for an area.

This means that, despite the changes, the South East Plan will continue to guide local development plans for the time being.

Where can I find more information?

We have created a schedule of the types of planning applications on which the Partnership Board should be consulted. These include:

• Developments above certain floorspace thresholds
• Key regional transport schemes
• Applications relating to minerals, waste, water, renewable energy and nature conservation.

 Schedule of regionally-significant planning applications - 65KB

In commenting on applications, we will focus on strategic issues. We will not provide detailed comments on the technical and local issues that other statutory consultees (such as the Highways Agency, Environment Agency and Natural England) and the local planning authority itself are best placed to comment on.

Where can I find the Partnership Board’s previous comments on planning applications?

When the Partnership Board's comments have been sent to the relevant local planning authority, they are published in our list of responses.
Responses issued before April 2009 are available on the South East England Regional Assembly  website.

Where should I send a regionally-significant planning application?

Details of planning applications in South East England that are of a regional significance should be sent to:

Sue Janota
Planning Manager
South East England Partnership Board
Berkeley House
Cross Lanes
Guildford
Surrey
GU1 1UN

They can also be sent by e-mail to angelaparkes@se-partnershipboard.org.uk

 

Publications

Development Management and the
South East Plan              

The Partnership Board has produced a dip-in-and-out reference tool to help local authority development management planners in the South East use and implement the South East Plan through their development management decisions.  The tool helps to quickly identify relevant South East Plan policies to inform development management decisions.

 Development management and the South East Plan - 2.8 MB