Please carefully read this guidance before making your representation.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to give us feedback about our revised Plan. We also want to help make sure that your feedback meets the relevant criteria so that your views are in the best position to be fully considered by the independent Planning Inspector. 

The technical and specific nature of the consultation means that the most effective way you can respond is by completing our dedicated survey. We will need to ask some specific questions, but don’t worry, there is also the opportunity to raise any broad or general questions or concerns about the Plan as part of our survey, too.

Guidance on making your representation

We have published Warrington’s ‘Updated Proposed Submission Version’, or draft, Local Plan for consultation. We are now seeking your views on the Plan.

The consultation is open for six weeks, from Monday 4 October, until 5pm on Monday 15 November 2021.

How the Local Plan has been prepared

The preparation of our draft Local Plan has been informed by:

• national policy and legislation
• listening and responding to feedback from the previous consultation stages
• evidence gathering about our Borough now and in the future
• ongoing discussions with neighbouring authorities
• engagement with key organisations such as Homes England, Highways England, the Environment Agency and infrastructure providers

What are we consulting on now?

This is the final consultation before we submit the Local Plan to the Planning Inspectorate, who will examine it on behalf of the Government.

This consultation presents the opportunity to comment on the proposed policy content of the draft Local Plan, with specifically-focused questions.

The questions relate to whether the Plan complies with legal requirements, the ‘duty to cooperate’ and meets the ‘tests of soundness’. These are the key issues that the independent Inspector will consider when assessing the Local Plan and they are explained in detail below.

We have framed the consultation in this way, to meet the requirements of the Planning Inspectorate and to ensure that your representation on the Local Plan is as effective as possible.

Legal Compliance and Duty to Co-operate

The Inspector will first check that the Plan meets the legal requirements under section 20(5) (a) and the duty to co-operate under section 20(5) (c) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 before moving on to test for soundness.

Soundness

The tests of soundness are set out in paragraph 35 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). 

Plans are sound if they are:

• Positively prepared – providing a strategy which, as a minimum seeks to meet the area’s objectively assessed needs, and is informed by agreements with other authorities, so that unmet need from neighbouring authorities is accommodated where it is practical to do so and is consistent with achieving sustainable development;
• Justified – an appropriate strategy, taking into account the reasonable alternatives, and based on proportionate evidence;
• Effective - deliverable over the plan period and based on effective joint working on cross-boundary strategic matters that have been dealt with rather than deferred, as evidenced by the statement of common ground; and
• Consistent with national policy – enabling the delivery of sustainable development in accordance with the policies in the NPPF.

If you are seeking a change to the Plan

If you wish to make a representation seeking a change, known as a ‘modification’, to the Plan or part of the Plan you should first set out clearly in what way you consider the plan or part of the Plan is legally non-compliant or unsound, having regard as appropriate to the soundness criteria set out above. Your representation should be supported by evidence wherever possible. It will be helpful if you also say precisely how you think the Plan should be modified.

You should provide succinctly all the evidence and supporting information necessary to support your representation and your suggested modification. You should not assume that you will have a further opportunity to make submissions. Any further submissions after the Plan has been submitted for examination may only be made if invited by the Inspector, based on the matters and issues they identify.

If you think the content of the Plan is not sound because it does not include a policy on a particular issue, you should go through the following steps before making representations:

• Is the issue with which you are concerned already covered specifically by national planning policy?
• Is the issue with which you are concerned already covered by another policy in this Plan?
• If the policy is not covered elsewhere, in what way is the plan unsound without the Policy?
• If the Plan is unsound without the policy, what should the policy say?

Making Representations as a Group

here groups or individuals share a common view on the Plan, it would be very helpful if they would make a single representation which represents that view, rather a large number of separate representations repeating the same points.  In such cases the group should indicate how many people it is representing and how the representation has been authorised.

Examination in Public

Please consider carefully how you would like your representation to be dealt with in the examination: whether you are content to rely on your written representation, or whether you wish to take part in hearing session(s). Only representors who are seeking a change to the Plan have a right to be heard at the hearing session(s), if they so request. In considering this, please note that written and oral representations carry the same weight and will be given equal consideration in the examination process.

Further information on the Examination Process is available from the Planning Inspectorate.

Completing the Online Representation Form

Submitting a response

You do not have to complete the survey in one go. Throughout the survey there is the option to ‘save and continue’. If you choose ‘save and continue’ you will be asked to provide an email address – and then will be emailed a link. When you to go back to it, all you have to do is click on the link.

There is no ‘time-out’ on the survey so your response should remain accessible as long as you have the survey open in your browser.

If you don’t save and then close your browser, this could then cause you to lose the response when you re-open the browser, so the save and continue (above) function should be used if you cannot complete the survey in one go.

On completion of the survey please select the ‘submit’ button. If you have provided an email address you will receive a copy of your full response form and a unique id number. You should retain this id number for future reference.