Development management privacy notice

The Planning Services department of Elmbridge Borough Council collect information about you in order to process a planning or planning related application (including any associated legal agreement) and any subsequent appeal that has been submitted by you (the applicant) or on your behalf by an agent. This also includes environmental screening and scoping opinion requests.

We can be contacted via the online contact form.

Lawful basis for collecting your personal data

Our lawful basis for processing your personal data under Article 6(1) of the UK GDPR is:

public task: the processing is necessary for the performance a task in the public interest or for the exercise of official authority

The information we may collect

As part of this process we will be asking you for:

applicant’s name, address and contact details
agent’s name, address and contact details
contact details for gaining access to the site
evidence of disability if claiming a free planning application on the grounds of disability
evidence supporting your application. In the main this will be plans and technical statements but within this you may include personal, financial, medical or ethnic information to justify your application

Why we collect this information

planning legislation requires that the application and supporting information is submitted to enable the application to be processed and a decision to be made
as part of determining an application, legislation requires that public consultation is carried out and application information is made available for inspection by the public or anyone with an interest in the application
planning legislation requires that a register of applications is maintained by us for public inspection
planning information must be revealed in local land charges searches

The legal basis for using this information is contained in planning related legislation including but not restricted to:

The Planning Act 1990
The Planning (Listed Building and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
The Town and Country (Control of Advertisements) Regulations
The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015
The Town and Country (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015) (as amended)

The legislation states what information needs to be submitted and without the information the application is invalid and cannot be determined.

We may share your personal information with:

information will be recorded onto the joint Planning, Building Control and Land Charge database and Document Management System which may be accessed by staff working in these departments and staff in other departments who sometimes work on behalf of planning such as our legal department
legislation specifies the publicity requirements for the different types of planning applications and consents. Information submitted will be available for public inspection on our website. We will aim to redact telephone numbers, email addresses and signatures so they cannot be viewed by the public on the website. The only exception is on planning drawings where the author will put their contact details on a plan as part of their copyright information. In this case we do not redact their phone number or email
where other personal information is provided as part of the application such as medical information and bank account details, we will also aim to redact it so it cannot be viewed on the website
planning application information forms part of the planning register under section 40 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure Order) (England) Order 2015. It must be made publicly available as it forms part of the planning history for a property or parcel of land
planning legislation requires that certain public bodies are consulted on applications. They are known as statutory consultees and they need to see the applications to be able to comment. Most view the redacted applications through the website but there are occasions when the consultee needs to view an unredacted copy in order to be able to provide a full response
legislation requires that lists of certain applications are published in the local press
a full list of valid planning applications is published on our website each week and a copy of this list is emailed to various bodies and people who have requested that they receive a copy of this list by email
planning information is shared with local land charges as they are legally required to reveal planning information in local searches under the Local Land Charges Act 1975 and Rules 1977
information may be shared with adjoining local authorities where the site may fall across two local authority areas or where the scheme is likely to have an impact on the adjoining authority
other internal consultees and external advisors to enable us to make robust decisions
the street naming and numbering team will have access to your data to enable the creating of new property records for planning
where there is an ongoing legal agreement forming part of the application, it may be necessary to share the information with other departments and external bodies to monitor that the legal terms are complied with
it may be necessary to share unredacted information with our legal or finance teams as part of carrying out our functions as the local planning authority
if you are a regular agent, the planning department may contact you to update you with information in relation the processing of planning applications. For example, when there is a change to the legislation or a fee increase. Your information will only be used to contact you with planning information and will not be used by other departments or for marketing purposes
a customer satisfaction survey is carried out from time to ensure that we are meeting our customer’s expectations and to enable us to review what we could do better to make the planning process quicker and clearer for applicants and agents. Your contact information will only be used in connection with your experience of the planning application process and will not be used for marketing purposes. If you do not wish to proceed with the survey, then you are free to decline
information may be shared with the police to assist them with investigations
if we receive a request, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) or Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), to disclose information relating to planning applications, they are obliged to do so unless the information is deemed exempt under the Act. We can only withhold information under FOI or EIR if the information falls under one of the exemptions (FOI) or exceptions (EIR) set out in legislation

What we do with your information

Your information is used to enable us to determine your application and will form part of the planning register and planning history relating to the property/site.

How long we will keep your information

All information submitted as part of an application and the outcome of the application are kept indefinitely as they form part of the planning history relating to a property or piece of land. The planning register needs to be kept available to the public and planning information needs to be revealed as part of the local land charges.

Your rights

You do have some legal rights in respect of the personal information we collect from you. Please see our corporate privacy notice for further details.

You can also contact our Data Protection Officer by email at dataprotection@elmbridge.gov.uk.

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), see Information Commissioner's Office: Make a complaint.

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