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West Berkshire Council redacts names from planning application letters




West Berkshire Council has decided to keep secret the names of people who lodge comments on planning applications.

The Lib Dem-run council – which had a promise of ‘greater transparency’ at the heart of its election manifesto – has quietly made the changes in the last few months.

West Berkshire Council
West Berkshire Council

This is despite the guidance offered in Local Government Association endorsed Planning Advisory Service document ‘Planning and GDPR’.

But the council is brushing off the move as an admin benefit, claiming it is perfectly entitled to do it.

“By removing all the information, we can check and publish comments quicker, easier and have eliminated most of the risks,” said a spokesperson, referring to ‘near misses’ with GDPR to be at the heart of the behind-closed-doors decision.

The old system, where people would send in an email or even letters, is now redundant, as it was considered too time consuming.

Now ‘customers’, as the council refers to people who interact with it, are directed to create a login via a public access portal.

Comments are sent and entered directly into the system and then published online – but anonymously.

What this means is that now anyone – applicant, or objector or supporter of an application – cannot be publicly scrutinised.

The decision flies in the face of Government guidance and means that the public can no longer see who is seeking to influence planners or even whether they live in the region.

For example, Guildford Borough Council in Surrey tells residents: “If you comment on a planning application, then your name and address will be publicly available as required by planning legislation.”

And the issue has been relevant in the past, with some local residents having apparently persuaded friends living far from West Berkshire to protest an application to which they objected.

The LGA-endorsed Planning Advisory Service document ‘Planning and GDPR’ says: “The publication on an LPA’s website of individuals’ names and addresses in connection with planning applications is required by article 402 of the Development Management Procedure Order.”

It goes on to state: “In contrast, the publication of their email addresses, signatures and telephone numbers is likely to be excessive to the task.

“LPAs should definitely not blanket publish all the data given to them without any consideration or care. Equally concerning would be an LPA who refused to publish anything citing ‘data protection issues’.”

The document suggests (Under Appendix 1), a ‘sample privacy notice’ which states: “Making decisions on planning matters is a public task and you do not have the right to withdraw consent for your data to be processed.”

From the above it seems clear that the LGA believes planning authorities should routinely provide names and addresses of individuals seeking to influence the planning process.

But the council disagrees.

“The planning portal was updated about four months ago and during the upgrade it was decided to change the layout,” says Denise Gaines (Lib Dem, Hungerford and Kintbury), executive member for planning.

“Historically all the comments, statutory consultees, plans and layouts were all in the same place.

“This meant that if it was a large or complicated application anyone interested had to trawl through a great deal of information to get to what they were looking for.

“The new layout has a comments tab with both public and statutory consultee tabs and a documents tab giving all the technical details of the application.

“On the public tab the comments are all listed, detailing the number of objections and support. They are not attributed to an individual.

“That information has been removed.

“The information is still available on the planning system, just not visible to the public.

“This is so that this information is available for appeals.

“When a planning application is heard at committee the comments, sent in by residents, are listed but are not attributed to individuals.”

She went on to say that the council has, in the past, had complaints from residents who have sent in objections not realising that their names and addresses were visible and stating that it was in breach of GDPR.

“We were not [in breach of GDPR],” she adds, despite the council claiming GDPR was one of the drivers for doing it in the first place.

“This new format allows us to very quickly update the planning portal with resident’s comments on an application without having to check if they wish their details to be excluded, this avoids delaying their comments being uploaded.

“To strike a balance, we have agreed that we will provide the details should they be requested, however we will still need to ensure that whoever is requesting the data is aware that it should not be re-used for purposes other than which it was collected.”

A lack of transparency in local government can lead to reduced public trust, decreased accountability, and increased susceptibility to mismanagement according to the Institute for Government.

That said, the Lib Dems made much of increasing accountability and transparency in their 2023 election manifesto (when the Tories were in charge).

“Opening advisory groups to public scrutiny rather than the secretive Conservative approach” was a key line.

On that point, the council leader Jeff Brooks said: “We as a council will be as transparent as confidential stuff allows us to be.

“But does that stretch to putting peoples names out there?

“There are circumstances where people will not want their names out there.”



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