The six-week consultation period for both the Barton Area Action Plan and for the Sites and Housing Development planning policy will run from Friday 10th February to Friday 23rd March.
Consultation at this stage will be more formal than at the previous stages, as Council has now agreed the draft plans and is seeking representations on the soundness of those plans. They will be running a ‘duty officer’ type of arrangement on Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons throughout the consultation period so that members of the public with queries about either document can come in to the customer service centre at St Aldates Chambers to talk through their questions/concerns with an officer. They will be doing a large mail out (electronically where possible) to organisations and individuals on their consultation databases, and in addition will be circulating a leaflet to all households in the Barton Area Action Plan area to keep them as informed and up-to-date about the AAP as possible.
Following the consultation, officers will produce a summary of the representations received and the main issues that were raised. This will accompany each document, and the supporting evidence base, when it is submitted to the Secretary of State for examination. It’s intended that the Barton examination will go first and may be completed before the main summer holiday period (although this will of course depend on the number/complexity of representations received, and how the Inspector wishes to handle the examination). The Sites and Housing examination would then follow in the autumn, although again the precise timetable is dependent on the Inspector.