We’ve just been notified that the Petititions Committee will discuss our Petition for the ninth time on 13 November. I’ll remind everyone the day before in case you want to watch it live.
We have only been given till Friday in which to make a further written submission which is a bit tight; we normally get two weeks! What is the point in submitting anything to the Scottish Parliament on a Friday afternoon when it won’t even be glanced at until the Monday morning? We’ll be asking for an extension of time.
We have no idea what is going to happen this time. As you will know from our last update, they kept their word (eventually) and consulted stakeholders on both Draft Guidance for Effective Community Engagement and also on raising the 50MW threshold as part of the Investing in Planning Consultation. We await the outcome of both.
We are still working on persuading the Scottish Government to provide a publicly funded Advocate in order to ensure that all individuals and communities wishing to take part in a Public Inquiry will receive professional support to help them participate equally with the appellant’s team of lawyers and expert witnesses. They are obviously not keen to do this as it will cost them more money and they are pleading poverty as it is but we will keep at it, we have a lot of people on our side.
You can find all of our submissions to the Committee on the following link, including the last one from April this year. https://www.parliament.scot/get-involved/petitions/view-petitions/pe1864-increase-the-ability-of-communities-to-influence-planning-decisions-for-onshore-windfarms
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