The Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) is a document that we must produce and keep up to date to ensure effective community involvement at all stages in the planning process.
It sets out how anyone who lives, works, plays or carries out business in the Buckinghamshire Council area can be involved in plan making (local plans), Supplementary Planning Documents, neighbourhood plans, planning applications, and planning enforcement. The main aim of the SCI is to make consultation and involvement in planning more transparent, accessible, collaborative, inclusive and consistent.
Consultation on the SCI will run from today (16 February) to 22 March 2021.
We will then review all of the comments received and then take this to Cabinet for formal adoption. This is expected to be around June 2021.
The SCI is available on ‘Your Voice Bucks’ during the consultation period https://yourvoicebucks.citizenspace.com/planning/sci-2021
Warren Whyte, Cabinet Member for Planning and Enforcement said: “We recognise that planning affects people’s daily lives, as the decisions we make shape the place we live and work in. As a result, we want to involve communities as early in the process as possible.
There are many benefits for involving communities in planning matters, these include a greater focus on local needs and priorities; planning decisions informed by local knowledge; increased community understanding of how planning policies are developed.
We want our residents and business community, to feel empowered to get involved with planning if they wish. We aim to make consultation and involvement in planning transparent, accessible, collaborative, inclusive and consistent. We will do this through the methods set out in this SCI.”