Privacy

View the Surrey Heath Borough Council privacy notices.

Planning Policy

What information do we collect from you?

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data includes your name, address, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, nationality, date of birth.
  • Contact Data includes your email address and telephone numbers.
  • Special Category includes medical health data, vulnerabilities, financial data
  • Communications Data includes your communications with us and our third parties including registration of services and complaints.

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Special Category Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email, online or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

  1. Provide your feedback on consultations;
  2. subscribe to our service;
  3. give us some feedback
  4. register as a new customer
  5. respond to queries or complaints

Purposes for which we will use your personal data 

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please email data.protection@surreyheath.gov.uk if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Purpose/Activity

 

Type of data

 

Lawful basis for processing 

Creation and implementation of the Local Plan, Neighbourhood Plans, supporting Planning Guidance and Planning Applications

 

Identity

Contact

 

Necessary for our public task

 

 

Public consultations

Identity

Contact

 

Necessary for our public task

 

Management of conservation areas

Identity

Contact

Necessary for our public task
Maintaining the Self Build Register

Identity

Contact

Necessary for our public task

Consent

Maintaining the Land Charges Register

Identity

Contact

Necessary for our public task

 

Maintaining the Listed Building Register

Identity

Contact

Necessary for our public task

 

Management of public enquiries related to planning issues

Identity

Contact

Necessary for our public task

 

To respond to queries, complaints and compliments

 

 Identity

Contact

Communication

 

Legitimate Interest 

 

Who we will share your data with?

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table above.

  • Other Local Authorities
  • Other Departments within Surrey Heath Borough Council
  • Planning Inspectorate
  • Other third parties to whom we may choose to transfer, or merge parts of our service or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

Where we do share your information we will only do so where we have your consent or where we are required to do so under additional legal or legislative requirements including;

  • The Town and Country Planning Act 1990
  • The Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012
  • The Planning Act 2008
  • The Housing and Planning Act 2016
  • The Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
  • The Localism Act 2011
  • The Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010
  • The Assets of Community Value (England) Regulations 2012
  • The Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Regulations 2016
  • The Levelling-Up and Regeneration Act, 2023

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.  We will only ever share the minimum information.

For the formulation of Local Plans. Local Plans determine land use and planning policy for the area which then sets the context for making decisions on planning applications. The production of these is strictly regulated and we will consult on these using the information held on our representation database. If you submit comments to a Local Plan consultation your name and your comments will be made public on the Council Planning Policy website at Planning policy | Surrey Heath Borough Council All other personal information will be held confidentially. When we consult on the ‘Pre-submission' Regulation 19 stage of the Local Plan (i.e. the version intended to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for independent examination in public), and on any subsequent modifications the information you submit when making your comments will need to be shared with the Planning Inspectorate and Local Plan Programme Officer. This will include personal information (name and contact details) so that you can be contacted to participate in the examination process. 

Transferring data outside of the EEA

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

How we handle data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

How we handle data breaches

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

How long will we retain your information for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see https://www.surreyheath.gov.uk/council/information-governance/how-we-use-your-data/your-legal-rights 

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

What are my rights with regards to data?

Please see Your Legal Rights section of the main Privacy Notice.

http://www.surreyheath.gov.uk/council/information-governance/how-we-use-your-data#7