Very disappointingly we have been advised by Wealden District Council that neighbour notification letters are no longer going to be sent out from 1st November. Instead, neighbours will have to rely on a site notice, their website or social media. We were advised as follows:

Dear Parish/Town Clerk

The methods that the Council use to publicise applications considered to be valid on or after 1st November 2020 is changing.

From this date, the Council will no longer notify adjoining properties by letter. This change is following the adoption of the Statement of Community Involvement (SCI), which was adopted on 22nd July 2020 at Full Council.

There is to be reliance on Site Notices together with the website and social media. Where required by legislation, adverts will continue to be placed in the local newspaper

This change will not affect how the Council notify statutory bodies such as Town and Parish Councils.

For more details please visit: https://www.wealden.gov.uk/planning-and-building-control/planning-advice/update-on-how-we-notify-on-planning-applications/

If you are on the internet, the parish council would urge you to sign up to the My Wealden Alerts at https://my.wealden.gov.uk/en. You would then be notified via the weekly Wealden update (at the bottom of the email) of any new planning applications in your area. In addition to this, the parish council will try its utmost to inform residents of new application as they arrive via its website, Facebook and BPEC. However, this does by no means cover the many residents who are not on the internet, so we would please ask everyone to spread the word as new applications are submitted.