Plan­ning Ser­vice Charter CAIRNGORMS

The ser­vice stand­ards our cus­tom­ers can expect

Pub­lished: April 2015

NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY UGH­DAR­RAS PÀIRC NÀISEANTA A’ MHON­AIDH RUAIDH

1. OUR COMMITMENT

Over­all pur­pose: Our Plan­ning Ser­vice is a key part of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and is com­mit­ted to the Vis­ion’, Mis­sion and Val­ues as set out in the Cor­por­ate Plan 2015 to 2018. The Plan­ning Ser­vice plays a key part in cre­at­ing the Park we all want by get­ting the right devel­op­ment in the right place, by pro­mot­ing invest­ment, by pro­tect­ing and enhan­cing the natural/​cultural envir­on­ment and by cre­at­ing places that we will value and enjoy. In order to do this the five key themes behind our approach are:

• Open for Busi­ness: The Plan­ning Ser­vice is deliv­ery-focussed and open to new ideas, pro­mot­ing and encour­aging invest­ment in the Park to meet the needs of loc­al com­munit­ies, busi­nesses and vis­it­ors and to enhance the Park’s nat­ur­al capital.

• High-qual­ity devel­op­ment on the ground: The Park is an area to encour­age the highest qual­ity in terms of design so that we cre­ate great places to live, work and vis­it. CNPA, through pre­par­a­tion of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and its plan­ning decisions, gives lead­er­ship and dir­ec­tion to make this happen.

• Focussed on cus­tom­ers and con­tinu­ously improv­ing: The Plan­ning Ser­vice takes a broad view of the cus­tom­er, look­ing bey­ond applic­ants for plan­ning per­mis­sion and object­ors, achiev­ing pos­it­ive out­comes for the Park in the long term. We are con­stantly listen­ing to feed­back and take a pro­act­ive approach to ser­vice improve­ment. Our staff are highly pro­fes­sion­al, effi­cient and effective.

• It’s a Part­ner­ship: Good out­comes from the Plan­ning Ser­vice in the Park res­ult from a part­ner­ship between CNPA, oth­er parts of pub­lic ser­vice and the private and voluntary/​charitable sec­tors. We pro­mote gath­er­ings of people to facil­it­ate pos­it­ive involve­ment from developers, com­munity coun­cils and asso­ci­ations and all oth­er inter­ested parties.

• Open and Enga­ging: We get the best out of the Plan­ning Ser­vice if people get involved in the pro­cess early, ideally at the stage when the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans are being drawn up and when devel­op­ment pro­pos­als are at a very early stage. CNPA con­sults widely and works closely with loc­al author­it­ies, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and Com­munity Coun­cils and Asso­ci­ations. We strongly encour­age pre-applic­a­tion dis­cus­sion with loc­al author­it­ies about any devel­op­ment pro­pos­al to get the best out­come for cus­tom­ers and for the Park.

¹ The Vis­ion: ​“An out­stand­ing Nation­al Park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where nature and people thrive together”

2. THE PLAN­NING SERVICE

The Ser­vice is part of a lar­ger Plan­ning and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Group and is made up of staff in two teams, led by the Head of Planning:

• Devel­op­ment Plan­ning – work­ing to pre­pare and mon­it­or a Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) for the Nation­al Park, which sets the policies to encour­age appro­pri­ate devel­op­ment; and
• Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment – assess­ing the most sig­ni­fic­ant plan­ning applic­a­tions in the Park against the LDP, provid­ing advice to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee, mon­it­or­ing and enforcement.

The Plan­ning Ser­vice works in close part­ner­ship with each of the five loc­al author­it­ies to deliv­er the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan which provides a com­mon set of policies for the whole Nation­al Park. The Ser­vice draws on a wide range of spe­cial­ists who provide advice on policy for­mu­la­tion and on plan­ning applic­a­tions – for example, on eco­logy and land­scape issues (from with­in CNPA) and on roads or flood­ing impacts (from loc­al author­it­ies and oth­er pub­lic sec­tor partners).

This Charter sets out the stand­ards that our cus­tom­ers can expect from the Ser­vice. Our aim is to always meet the times­cales set out in these stand­ards but there will be times when this will not be pos­sible. You can find more detail of who does what at the con­tacts sec­tion of our website.

We pub­lish a series of Cairngorms Plan­ning Advice Notes on our web­site to provide help­ful advice on plan­ning issues.

3. DEVEL­OP­MENT PLANNING

Our Devel­op­ment Plan­ning team is respons­ible for pre­par­ing plan­ning policy and guid­ance. They pre­pare the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) and asso­ci­ated Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance. They also con­tinu­ally mon­it­or the adop­ted LDP to review its effect­ive­ness. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme provides the timetable for our LDP pre­par­a­tion and how you can get involved.

Our Ser­vice Standards

1. We will write all policy, guid­ance and oth­er cor­res­pond­ence in plain English.
2. We are com­mit­ted to the Nation­al Stand­ards for Com­munity Engage­ment will always con­sult the pub­lic, Com­munity Coun­cils and Asso­ci­ations and oth­er stake­hold­ers for a min­im­um of 6 weeks.
3. We will acknow­ledge receipt of writ­ten con­sulta­tion responses and update respon­ders at key stages of the process.
4. We will mon­it­or the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan to review its effect­ive­ness and pub­lish the res­ults on our web­site annually.
5. We will pub­lish the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan online as part of a wider approach to e‑planning.

4. DEVEL­OP­MENT MANAGEMENT

Devel­op­ment man­age­ment is a key part of our plan­ning ser­vice and covers:

• Assess­ing plan­ning applic­a­tions against the policies in the LDP
• Provid­ing recom­mend­a­tions to the CNPA Plan­ning Committee
• Mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment functions.

Our Ser­vice Standards

1. We will, with­in 21 days of receipt by CNPA, call-in plan­ning applic­a­tions for determ­in­a­tion by the CNPA where, in the opin­ion of the Head of Plan­ning, these applic­a­tions raise issues of poten­tial sig­ni­fic­ance to the four aims of the Nation­al Park.
2. We will check all applic­a­tions for suf­fi­cient inform­a­tion with­in 5 work­ing days of our receipt and request fur­ther inform­a­tion if required to enable our assess­ment of the application.
3. We will ask all applic­ants to enter into a Pro­cessing Agree­ment, set­ting out a plan and times­cale for determination.
4. We will aim to determ­ine all called-in plan­ning applic­a­tions meet­ing our sup­port­ing inform­a­tion require­ments either with­in stat­utory times­cales or with­in the pre­scribed determ­in­a­tion times­cale agreed set-out in the rel­ev­ant Pro­cessing Agreement.
5. We will issue all Decision Notices with­in 10 work­ing days of the rel­ev­ant Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ing (unless a leg­al agree­ment is still to be signed).
6. We will provide an e‑planning ser­vice to make it easy for any­one inter­ested to see all the rel­ev­ant doc­u­ments online.

MON­IT­OR­ING Our Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer ensures that plan­ning per­mis­sions and their con­di­tions are being com­plied with. Applic­ants are now required to noti­fy us when they intend to start build­ing and when works are complete.

Our Ser­vice Standards

1. We will acknow­ledge Notices of Ini­ti­ation of Devel­op­ment with­in 3 work­ing days of receipt.
2. We will respond to inform­a­tion sub­mit­ted to meet con­di­tions on a plan­ning per­mis­sion with­in 20 work­ing days.
3. We will respond to a writ­ten request for a Non-Mater­i­al Vari­ation to a plan­ning per­mis­sion with­in 20 work­ing days.

ENFORCE­MENT Our Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer invest­ig­ates pos­sible breaches of plan­ning con­trol and seeks remedi­al action where neces­sary. For fur­ther details, please see our Enforce­ment Charter.

Our Ser­vice Standards

1. We will acknow­ledge receipt of writ­ten enquir­ies or con­cerns about devel­op­ment with­in 5 work­ing days.
2. We will respect the con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of any­one rais­ing a con­cern about a pos­sible breach of plan­ning con­trol as far as is reas­on­ably and leg­ally pos­sible. How­ever, a request for con­fid­en­ti­al­ity may also restrict our capa­city to fully invest­ig­ate the rel­ev­ant matters.
3. We will write to com­plain­ants with­in 20 work­ing days of receipt of a writ­ten enquiry, to advise wheth­er fur­ther action will be taken and we will keep all parties informed.

PLAN­NING COMMITTEE Our Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meets once a month in pub­lic to con­sider plan­ning applic­a­tions, enforce­ment actions, and policy papers. All our Board mem­bers sit on the Plan­ning Committee.

Our Ser­vice Standards

1. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee oper­ates under the terms of its Stand­ing Orders and mem­bers observe the Code of Con­duct for Mem­bers.
2. We will pub­lish an annu­al diary of Com­mit­tee meet­ing dates on our website.

3. We will write to any­one who has made a writ­ten rep­res­ent­a­tion about an applic­a­tion 7 work­ing days before the meet­ing, to let them know when and where the meet­ing will take place.

4. We will make Com­mit­tee papers avail­able on our web­site and at our Grant­own on Spey office 7 days before the date of each meeting.

5. We will pub­lish draft minutes on our web­site with­in 20 work­ing days of each meeting.

5. MON­IT­OR­ING OUR PERFORMANCE

We will carry out reg­u­lar mon­it­or­ing to check that we are achiev­ing our ser­vice standards.

We will bench­mark our per­form­ance against equi­val­ent rur­al plan­ning author­it­ies, pub­lish quarterly per­form­ance inform­a­tion and report on our per­form­ance and pro­gress in meet­ing these stand­ards on an annu­al basis. We will review these ser­vice stand­ards annu­ally and update this Charter to ensure they are still relevant.

6. WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU

Con­tact us: You can con­tact us in the fol­low­ing ways:

Email: planning@​cairngorms.​co.​uk Phone: 01479 873535 Address: Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, 14 The Square, Grant­own-on-Spey, PH26 3HG.

Our office is open from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Fri­day. Inform­a­tion on plan­ning applic­a­tions can be viewed online at our ePlan­ning pages, at our Grant­own on Spey office, and inform­a­tion can also be made avail­able at our Bal­later office on request (Albert Memori­al Hall, Sta­tion Square, AB35 5QB).

How to give feedback We wel­come feed­back to help us improve our ser­vice. You can email us dir­ect or com­plete our online plan­ning sat­is­fac­tion sur­vey.

Com­plaints We aim to provide a high stand­ard of ser­vice at all times. How­ever, some­times prob­lems do arise. Please dir­ect any com­plaint to the per­son you first speak to or com­mu­nic­ate with at CNPA, and if unre­solved to the Head of Plan­ning at CNPA. If the mat­ter remains unre­solved, please refer to our form­al Com­plaints Pro­ced­ure.