(1) Barnet Council's policy on timely publication of statutory consultee responses on the planning portal (2) Request to upload statutory consultee responses on planning portal for Watling Avenue...
Received: 20 December 2025
Under the Freedom of Information Act/Environmental Information Regulations please could you:(1) Indicate:(a) whether Barnet Council has policy to ensure that publication of statutory consultee responses are published in a timely manner on the planning portal and if so, where the policy can be found; otherwise (b) why Barnet Council does not typically publish statutory consultee responses on the planning portal in a timely manner (i.e. as soon as they are received)?Background: residents with an interest in significant applications are naturally interested in statutory consultee responses*, but in many cases they have to submit an FOI in order to obtain copies of them. This creates unnecessary work for residents (and presumably FOI teams who must seek them out from Planning Case Officers who possess them). It also creates a transparency deficit for the duration of time that responses are not publicly available (either due to a delay, incompleteness or disappearance). The deficit is all the greater if the public consultation has long since closed and planning application has yet to be heard at a Planning Committee.** *E.g. see 8 December 2025 Barnet Question Time: https://youtu.be/zdEgbjomNqs?list=PLTJdPHAQ9nUrQOvs-6jWNAFKeD7_pkee2&t=1566** This scenario applies to the Watling Avenue Car Park redevelopment for which 3 separate FOIs have been submitted (13817260 - 23 Jan 2025, 14442776 - 28 Apr 2025, 15542204 - 3 Oct 2025): -all responses were published after the public consultation for the application closed-the council's response to the second FOI (14442776) was incomplete, since it did not include the Council's Heritage Officer's February 2025 response despite being requested in April 2025; and the first two FOI publications-as at 20 December 2025, the statutory consultee responses published under the first two FOIs have disappeared from public view, since the FOI page only retains responses for 180 days after the date of the FOI request (https://www.barnet.gov.uk/foi-requests/15542204).(2) Publish all internal and external statutory consultee responses on the Planning Portal, for the following planning applications:(a) Watling Avenue Car Park Redevelopment (24/2556/FUL); and(b) Edgware Community Hospital (25/3616/RMA)NB: On 17 November 2025, Barnet Council responded to an FOI request by indicating that it had uploaded consultee responses the Planning Portal (which was referred to as the 'Public Register') for High Barnet Station Car Park***. The upload was done before the Strategic Planning Committee papers were available to the public (ahead of the 8 December 2025 SPC itself). Hence, one would infer that there is no reason why consultee responses for other applications cannot be handled in the same way.*** See: https://www.barnet.gov.uk/foi-requests/15712952.
Outcome / Documents
- Response (all information to be supplied) - application/pdf - Download