Planning privacy notices

The Planning Services department of Elmbridge Borough Council collect information about you in order to provide you with the pre–application advice service.

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 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

We collect this information to enable us to provide pre application advice on a proposed development.

Who we may share your information with

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.
• Other internal consultees and external advisors to enable us to provide an accurate response on whether planning permission is likely to be forthcoming.
• If we receive a request, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) or Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), to disclose information relating to pre application advice, we 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 request for pre application advice.

If you are a regular agent, the planning department may contact you to update you with information in relation the processing of pre application advice. For example, when there is a fee increase or if we are changing the way we handle pre application advice requests. 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 may be 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 process quicker and clearer for applicants and agents. Your contact information will only be used in connection with your experience of the planning department and will not be used for marketing purposes. If you do not wish to proceed with the survey, then you are free to decline.

How long we will keep your information

Your request and our response are retained so that it can be matched up with any subsequent planning application that is submitted.

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.