Introduction

The Council, as Local Planning Authority (LPA), provides the statutory planning service for the Borough of Ashford through the Planning Committee and the Planning and Development Service.

The ambition of the Planning and Development service is to be open, friendly and offer a customer focussed service to all users – including local people, applicants and their agents, councillors, parish councils, and service-providers of all sorts.

This Communications Plan endeavours to outline the service standards you can expect to receive when dealing with your enquiries as well as setting out where particular information can be found and the important contact e-mail addresses. More specific information can be found on the Planning & Development pages of the Council’s website.

General queries on planning matters can be very straightforward or very complex. The standards set out in this document reflect the expectations for the majority of queries we receive on a range of subjects but there may be occasions where considerable work may be needed or the views of other consultees (potentially including some external to the Council) required before a full response can be provided. In these exceptional cases, it may take longer to respond but officers will be expected to update the customer regularly on the timescale.

When dealing with planning applications, the standards set out in this Communications Plan will support the processing timescales and targets contained within the ‘Good Practice Guide’ for non-major applications. They are designed to allow officers to focus on and prioritise the work they need to undertake to achieve those targets.

Officers will endeavour to meet these standards at all times but this might not always be possible in the event of absences due to leave or illness. Where this is the case, we will aim to respond as soon as possible if only to provide an indication as to when a full response may be possible.