Local Development Plan consultation extended as ‘not all the required documentation was available’ to public

Wrexham Council have extended the deadline for public consultation on the Local Development Plan until 5pm on Monday 16th July, an extra six weeks.

It is believed that the extension has occurred after it was pointed out to the council that required documents were not present as part of the public consultation, and after taking external legal advice the council have extended the timeframe.

Not all the required documentation was available to view until after the consultation period formally began: specifically, the Site Registers which explain why sites are or are not proposed to be allocated for development in the LDP.

The council have though added that this is a great extra opportunity for those who have not yet taken part, to get involved in the consultation that was due to end last night.

On Wednesday one New Broughton resident told us they attended a local drop in session on Tuesday, “I was given a paper form and documents explaining how to submit any comments for and against the two proposed sites for housing. The officer/staff member there told me that the deadline to comment was supposed to be May 31 but said that they have decided to extend the consultation period until June 29 and she wrote that down on the documents she handed me.”

Later we tweeted the following, and asked around various contacts to discover if there had been an extension and the correct information was being given out.

No change appeared to be known publicly at that point, nor by any councillors we spoke with.

Couple of people who attended a drop in session for the LDP today say they were told deadline extended. Not been notified of change here. Any Cllrs / officers know the situation? Portal / official stuff still has original date pic.twitter.com/2shCcY40ns

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) May 30, 2018

Yesterday evening we checked the LDP consultation portal site that now shows the new closure dates – further than the June 29th mentioned to attendees on Tuesday:

It appears some councillors have raised eyebrows over the lack of notification with what was evidently known internally on Tuesday, with a circular to members only being sent earlier this morning explaining the issue.

Wrexham Council have said this afternoon: “The Council has extended the deadline for responses to the LDP consultation until the 5 pm Monday 16 July. We have done this because additional information has been placed on the Council’s consultation portal (https://wrexham-consult.objective.co.uk/portal/ldp/dldp/ldp_deposit).

“The extension will allow as many people as possible to make their views known to us. If you have already made representations you do not need to make them again, but you may wish to look at the additional information and make further representation.

“The LDP is the single most important Plan we work to when considering planning applications and the future development of important sites in the County Borough. For this reason we hope that more businesses, organisations, groups and individuals will take advantage of this extension to express their views”.

The sub-portal page now has this notice in place as well:

Wrexham Council have also announced four more new drop in sessions to be held at Wrexham Contact Centre, Lord Street, Wrexham, LL11 1LG on the following dates:

To take part visit the Council’s LDP consultation portal site now!