Member

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, very eloquently explained why a pre-application consultation really matters. I have already shared with the Committee my experience with NSIPs, and I can honestly say that, too often, a lot of the initial ideas about what happens with some of these developments is literally a desktop exercise. Then, at the village halls that the developers go to, the communities get really frustrated. They ask, “Have you even been there? Do you not know about this particular issue? Who on earth have you spoken to before looking at this?” We cannot swear in this Committee, but they say things like, “What is actually going on?” That is why I think this is genuinely dangerous. Other things may happen later with judicial reviews, but this sort of activity starts to cause resentment.