I would like to express my concern about the process of consultation in relation to The HDC draft Local Plan 2011-2031. It has felt that the process has been undemocratic and extremely difficult to participate in.
1. The consultation process timetable is the absolute minimum required by law, 6 weeks. This means that most Parish Councils and Town Councils will only meet once during the consultation process. This is not adequate to allow full discussion and preparation of a response to the draft Local Plan.
2. The Local Plan Is over 300 pages long and has supporting documentation as follows:
* Sustainability Appraisal Report 671 pages,
* 3 sustainability appraisal summaries of the full SA report totalling 288 pages
* Habitat Regulations Assessment 18 pages
* Equalities Impact Assessment 9 pages
* Duty to Cooperate Statement 49 pages
* Interim Consultation Statement 168 pages
How can this be read, understood, discussed, commented on and a submission prepared in 6 weeks? Parish and Town Councillors are local volunteers with jobs, families and a life outside their public duties.

3. The timetable for the consultation period was only confirmed in the month that the process started. This left little time for PCs and other groups to prepare information sessions for local residents etc. No display/exhibition material was provided for PC use at village meetings.
4. In the last three days before the consultation process closes there is discussion about extending the consultation period. It is difficult to know what this will now achieve, as HDC are unlikely to communicate the extension to those who might participate.
5. HDC have relied on social media and the local press to advertise the Local Plan and the consultation process. Most residents in the west of the district do not buy the Harborough Mail as it rarely has information about Lutterworth etc. in it. I cannot say how many people follow HDC on Twitter and Facebook!!
6. HDC did not advertise the public consultation session in Lutterworth other than through the HDC website (and social media?). Lutterworth TC and local volunteer group, Magna Park is Big Enough, undertook the advertising of this event.
7. The area most affected by the Local Plan is Lutterworth - housing and Magna Park. The public session was timed at less than two weeks to the end of the consultation period. It was also half term. (We know efforts were made to change the date but only after pressure after the consultation period had started)
8. In order to take part in the process you basically have to have a computer and be computer literate.
Although paper forms are available officers were very reluctant to send out paper copies - some officers were deliberately difficult and one person was told that HDC did not expect the general public to be responding during the consultation process.
9. If people have managed to get a paper copy (or an e mail copy) they then have to fill in one per paragraph that they wish to comment on.
10. In the middle of the last week of the consultation period HDC agreed that paper copies could be more widely provided. However, to my knowledge, there has been no public communication of that information.
11. The on-line process is not easy for anyone and particularly the layperson that does not have a detailed knowledge of the Local Plan i.e. where does it talk about the things that they want to comment on. The fact that you have to comment on each separate relevant paragraph makes filling in the form like undertaking a marathon. Even people who are used to working on complex documents complained that the process was basically one that discouraged rather than encouraged participation.
12. I think most people would agree that it is only through the efforts of Magna Park is Big Enough (local action group) that local residents even know of the existence of the Local Plan and have been encouraged to respond to the proposals contained in it.

There are serious questions to be asked about this process and I hope that this will happen during the inspection process.