The Strategic Planning Team is concerned with producing the local planning documents and policies that are used to guide development in Thanet district. These documents must conform to relevant Government guidance and there are specific regulatory procedures which must be followed during their preparation. This includes the district Local Plan.

In addition, the Team carries out a significant amount of research and monitoring to inform policy-making.

As part of these processes, the Strategic Planning Team will contact people when we are consulting on the Local Plan, other new planning policy documents or in relation to research and monitoring activity, so that people can give us their views and comments and they can be used in the policy-making process.

Our Statement of Community Involvement gives further details of how we engage with the Thanet community.

The Council's corporate privacy policy can be viewed here:

https://www.thanet.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/TDC-Privacy-Notice.pdf

We collect and store your contact details including your name, email address, postal address and telephone number (should you give it) and organisation details if relevant, and make sure they are accurate and up to date.

This information may be collected through your response to planning engagement and consultation activity; prior registration/request to the Council to be included in such activity or for other reasons, and through day-to-day business contact and correspondence.

In relation to formal regulatory consultations, if you remain anonymous and do not give us your contact details, we cannot consider your comments.

We collect your contact details so that we can get in touch with you when we are consulting on new planning policy documents, including the Local Plan. You can then give us your views and comments and they can be considered when we make decisions relating to development in Thanet.

The Council is required (under the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012) to notify a range of specific and general consultation bodies, and such residents or other persons carrying on business in the local planning authority's area, from which the local planning authority consider it appropriate to invite representations (comments) on matters related to the Local Plan. The Council is also required to notify such individuals and groups that make representations (and have not withdrawn them) of any Examination processes.

The Council may also elect to consult on planning policy proposals where there is not a specific legal requirement to do so, because the Council is committed to genuine public engagement, and because it is important to gather information and views about policies and proposals. These consultations are held in the public interest.

From time to time, we may also contact you to send you other relevant information and updates relating to our policies, or for surveys and research into planning matters that affect the district, and may influence the development of planning policy. The Council is required (under the Planning & Compulsory Purchase Act 2004) to "keep under review...the principal physical, economic, social and environmental characteristics of the area of the authority", and it is important to do so to inform effective planning policy development for the district.

These matters include the principal physical, economic, social and environmental characteristics of the area of the authority; the principal purposes for which land is used in the area; the size, composition and distribution of the population of the area; and the communications, transport system and traffic of the area. The Council will seek to ensure that it contacts the relevant people and organisations in each case.

The Council is also required by legislation to maintain various registers (such as the Self & Custom Build Register or Brownfield Land Register), which may result in the Council holding your contact details, where you have applied to join the register in question.

If you choose to make a comment on any consultation, your comment, together with your name and your organisation, if relevant, will be published so that members of the public can see it. It will be published on the Thanet Strategic Planning pages of our website, our online Thanet Planning Consultation Portal and within any consultation report that summarises comments or responses to the issues raised. Signatures, addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers will not be shown (redacted).

All written comments received will be fully considered and from time to time we will contact you or your organisation so that we can discuss your views and suggestions further.

We will not acknowledge submitted comments unless requested. We will not accept or publish any comments that are considered offensive or prejudiced.

When the Local Plan is submitted for independent Examination, your contact details will be shared with the Examination Programme Officer, who will only use the data to contact you about the Local Plan Examination. The Programme Officer is an officer (or may be an external consultant) who is employed by the Council, but is responsible to the appointed Planning Inspector(s) for the administration of the Examination process.

Information may also be shared with the Planning Inspectorate as part of the Examination process.

The information that you have provided will be held by the Council's Planning Service, stored securely and will only be accessed by authorised Council employees. It will be processed in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation and other relevant legislation.

We will only use the information that you have provided for the purpose stated in the 'Why we need it' section above and will not use it for any other Council purpose, unless we have your consent, or if this is provided for by law.

Where studies or research is undertaken by another organisation on behalf of the Council, the Council may provide contact details of relevant stakeholders. This information is given solely for the purpose of the study or research in question. In most cases, comments/information given will not be attributed to an individual or group, but will form part of a wider report or paper.

Where you have provided contact details as part of a registration as set out above, we may share those details where it assists the Council in meeting its statutory duties in relation to the register and fulfilling the purpose of the register.

The Council uses "Inovem", a web-based consultation system, to manage formal planning policy consultations (see the consultation portal at https://thanetcouncilplan.inconsult.uk/). This privacy notice sets out information regarding the data that is held within Inovem and how it is processed.

Inovem includes a stakeholder database consisting of profiles of people who have made representations (comments) during planning policy consultations and/or have asked to be kept informed about planning policy consultations, and people or bodies that the Council has a statutory obligation to contact during planning policy consultations.

Each profile includes the following data fields:

• name
• email address
• postal address
• Telephone number (if provided)
• organisation (if the stakeholder is acting on behalf of one)
• job title (where relevant)
• planning topic areas that are of interest (e.g. housing, infrastructure, tourism)
• whether or not the stakeholder is a planning agent.

We will keep contacting you unless you tell us to unsubscribe or if we cannot contact you anymore. Each time we contact you we will ask you if you still wish to be on the database.

If you no longer wish to receive information from us please email us at local.plans@thanet.gov.uk, or write to us at: Strategic Planning Team, Thanet District Council, Cecil Street, Margate, Kent, CT9 1XZ.

Please contact the Data Protection Officer if you have any questions about our Privacy Notice or information we hold about you:

• By email: dataprotection@thanet.gov.uk
• Or for independent advice you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office - visit ico.org.uk or email casework@ico.org.uk