Petition to the Borough Council of King's Lynn & West Norfolk

 

We, the undersigned residents, ask the Borough Council of King's Lynn & West Norfolk to review and change the way residents' personal information is published when they comment on planning applications.

 

At present, residents are required to provide personal information when submitting planning representations, and  names and residential addresses may be made publicly available through the council's planning system.

 

While we fully understand that the council needs to know who has submitted a representation, we do not believe that members of the public need to have access to the identity or home address of individual residents in order for the planning process to be transparent.

 

We believe residents should be able to participate in the planning process without having to publicly identify themselves.

 

Planning applications can be extremely controversial, particularly in small communities where residents know one another personally.

 

People may have perfectly legitimate planning concerns but choose not to submit them because they do not want their name, home address or personal opinion publicly associated with them.

 

Residents may fear arguments, hostility on social media, confrontation in their village/town or simply having their personal views known to people who may disagree with them.

 

This is not merely a theoretical concern. I have personally chosen not to object to planning applications because I did not want my identity and personal details to be made public. I believe I may be far from alone in this.

 

If residents are discouraged from commenting because they are concerned about their privacy, the council may not receive a complete or accurate picture of the views and relevant concerns within the community.

 

This creates a potential negative effect on public participation and means that the planning process may not reflect the genuine level of concern within the community.

 

We are not asking for anonymous or unverifiable objections.

 

We fully accept that the council should be able to establish who has made a representation and should retain appropriate personal information for legitimate planning purposes.

 

Our request is simply that this information is kept securely by the council and not routinely published for public viewing.

 

There are already local authorities which take this approach, including councils that collect residents' names and addresses for planning purposes but do not publish those details online.

 

We therefore ask the Borough Council of King's Lynn & West Norfolk to consider adopting a similar privacy-conscious approach.

 

We ask the council to:

 

- Stop routinely publishing residents' full residential addresses alongside planning representations.

- Stop routinely publishing residents' names alongside their planning opinions.

- Continue to collect names and addresses privately where necessary to verify representations and administer the planning process.

- Keep residents' contact details, signatures, telephone numbers and email addresses private.

- Continue publishing the substance of planning representations, so that relevant planning considerations remain transparent and available to the public.

- Provide a clear process through which residents can request additional confidentiality where there are particular safety, privacy or harassment concerns.

- Review the council's current practice against the approaches adopted by other local planning authorities which already protect the identities and addresses of people making planning representations.

- Clearly explain what legal requirement, if any, prevents the council from adopting such an approach.

 

Transparency does not have to mean exposing residents.

 

We believe the public should be able to see the planning arguments, concerns and relevant information submitted by residents without necessarily being given the names and home addresses of the individuals who submitted them.

 

The council can know who we are without everyone else needing to know.

 

People should not have to choose between participating in local democracy and protecting their privacy and personal safety.

 

We therefore call upon the Borough Council of King's Lynn & West Norfolk to review its current planning-publication practices and introduce a system which protects residents' personal information while maintaining a transparent and accountable planning process.