Viewing TPOS

[Gary Prentice]

I've just been informed that the Head of Services of my LA has made some changes. Formally you could go to the planning office and request the TPO you were interested in. Then, more recently you could walk into the Civic Centre, and ask the receptionist for the order. Now, a duty officer, who only works two days a week has to be in the building and you have to make an appointment. I've always interpreted A copy of the order shall be made available for inspection, free of charge, at all reasonable hours as meaning immediately available on request.

 

Can I ask for the collectives thoughts and experiences?

 

From the TCPA;

(3) A copy of the order shall be made available for inspection, free of charge, at all reasonable hours, at the offices of the authority by whom the order was made; and where an order is made on behalf of an authority, it shall be made available for inspection also at the offices of the authority on whose behalf it was made. 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Only one way to interpret that Gary!  As you have.....

 

What those circumstances you describe might actually translate to (if yours is anything like mine) is that you send in your request for viewing appointment by email, within minutes you get an auto response which "aims to reply to your enquiry within 20 days." 15-20 days later, someone replies asking what it is you want.

 

You reply saying an appointment to view TPO, +/- 5 days later you get a reply asking when you'd like your appointment, you reply with a date (or date range), +/- 5 days later you get a reply saying nothing available in that date range could you suggest another, you send another, +5/- 5 days later......  etc, etc, etc..... 

 

[Gary Prentice]

Fortunately the public face of the dept is good (the girls in the office are brilliant) and things can be sorted out by phone (I have every individual email address anyway)

 

ive posted this on UKTC and got a very positive response, as well as agreement on the definition of 'reasonable hours'. 

 

A bit bit of research this evening then, before emailing the head of services to inform him of the error of his ways. 

 

 

[Khriss]

They are part of Planning documents - I seen no reason why they cannot be immediately available Online. K

[treequip]

12 minutes ago, Khriss said:

They are part of Planning documents - I seen no reason why they cannot be immediately available Online. K

Its the way that authority works, the next door authority has it all online but the one in question doesn't want that because then you would know what they know and that would never do. I asked their head of planning why they didn't have it online and all I got was the diplomatic and non  committal "we have no plans for that"

[Gary Prentice]

He may not have much say in the matter. I understand that all planning authorities will be obliged to have TPO information available online by 2021. 

 

I cant remember where I read this, if anyone knows I'd appreciate it.

 

As Treequip says, next door are brilliant. Loads of information online, email inquiries are answered the following day and they've even sent PDF's of orders to clarify questions FOC.

 

It can be done

[Khriss]

It's all part of the .GOV thing, so you can do yr car tax, put yr view over an grass yr neighbour up with a click of a mouse  k

[Gary Prentice]

I'd like something in writing, official like, to forward on to my LA, as they're very much unaware of it and as Treequip said "have no intention".

[daltontrees]

Just quote the TCPA as you did in your OP. Availabe means available, you shouldn't have to make an appointment. You shouldn't even be expected to say what TPO you want to see, the Council has no right to requre you to disclose that.