What is the Statement of Community Involvement (SCI)?

Community involvement is an integral part of the planning process.  Following the introduction of the Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 each Council is required to publish a Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) to show how people can become involved in the planning process.

The Benefits of Community Involvement

The Council’s approach to community involvement aims to provide:
  • The opportunity to comment on proposals at an early stage
  • Increased opportunity to make representations on proposals
  • Fair, transparent and proportionate consultation appropriate to the scale of proposals
  • Access to clear and timely information with documents available in various formats where requested

The Statement of Community Involvement was first published in April 2016 with the approval of the Department for Infrastructure on the 26th April 2016.

On the 6th November 2019 the Council revised its Statement of Community Involvement.  The main change relates to an extension of the formal consultation period for the Local Development Plan as a consequence of the consultation falling over a holiday period.

On the 15th December 2020 the Council further revised its Statement of Community Involvement. The revision relates to the inclusion of a consultation on focussed changes to ensure that issues impacting upon the soundness of the draft Plan Strategy are addressed before submission to the Department for Infrastructure to cause an Independent Examination.

This was subsequently approved by the Department for Infrastructure on the 14th January 2021 in accordance with Regulation 4(3) of the Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 and Regulation 6 of the Planning (Statement of Community Involvement) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015.

For convenience a Summary on the Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) outlines how to get involved in the Planning process.