LATEST: The Statement of Community Involvement was formally adopted on 29 June 2007.

Community involvement is an important part of the process of preparing the LDF. The aim of the Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) is to help ensure community ownership of the LDF, and to strengthen community involvement in planning over time. It also aims to improve overall representation and involvement across all sections of the community.

The SCI sets out:

• The Council's intended approach to involving partners, interested parties and the community (including hard to reach groups) in the production of the LDF and major development control decisions.

• The proposed arrangements for participation and consultation

Review of the Statement of Community Involvement

Following adoption of the SCI in February 2006 (see below), it became necessary to review the document. This is because comments from the Government Office for the South East required some changes to the documents being prepared that will form part of the Local Development Framework. The 2006 adopted SCI identifies appropriate consultation methods for individual documents. There were some changes to the suite of documents being prepared (as set out in the Local Development Scheme) so the SCI needed to be reviewed in order to reflect the content of the revised timetable. (The revised document is available below)

The changes to the Statement of Community Involvement were not extensive. The main changes were to Appendix One. It is proposed that the SCI should be more generic and less prescriptive, especially in respect of consultation methods for individual documents. It is important to note however, that the Council does not intend to reduce the community and stakeholder involvement in the preparation of the LDF documents. The aim of the changes are to extend the life of the document, in order to ensure that it does not need to be reviewed on an annual basis to reflect any changes that may be made in the annual review of the Local Development Scheme.

Following consultation on revised Issues and Options (May 2006) and Preferred Options (November 2006), the SCI was submitted to the Secretary of State in February 2007. The Inspectors' Report was received in April 2007, indicating that the document is sound.

The Council therefore adopted the Statement of Community Involvement on 29 June 2007.

The Inspectors' Report is available below:-

Cover Sheet (26kb)
Horsham (1st Revision) SCI Report (100kb)
Appendix A - Test of Soundness (34kb)
Appendix B - Cover Sheet (25kb)
Appendix B - Horsham SCI Report (507kb)
Appendix C - Cover Sheet (25kb)
Appendix C (pdf format - 254kb)

First Edition Adopted SCI

Following a Public Examination in November 2005, the Inspector prepared a Report (291kb) identifying several minor changes to be made. This report was binding on Horsham District Council and the changes to the Submission Draft were made. This allowed the Council to adopt the final version of the Statement of Community Involvement which was published on 17 February 2006.