Applicants and Neighbours - Planning Applications

Development Service - How we use your personal information

We take your privacy seriously and will only keep and use your personal information for reasons that the law requires or allows.

The Council is the data controller for the personal information we hold about you in relation to the planning and associated applications. In order to comply with data protection legislation we want to be sure you understand how we use this information.

The purposes for which your data will be used are:

1.    To enable the processing of planning and associated applications and any subsequent appeals

We are able to do this because we have a legal obligation to do so. There are several pieces of legislation that apply to the processing of planning and associated applications. The main rules that set out how to process these applications are contained in:

•  The Town and Country Planning Act (1990)
•  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
•  The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015
•  Part 8 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003

This list is not intended to be exhaustive.

We may share your information as follows: 

• Planning and associated applications are published on our website to enable other agencies such as statutory and non-statutory consultees and individuals interested in viewing and/or commenting on the application
• High Hedge complaints are shared with the subject of the complaint

We will use your information to allow us to fully consider the relevant planning application.  We will publish your address information on our website to enable other agencies such as statutory and non-statutory consultees and individuals interested in viewing and/or commenting on the application. Otherwise, we will only share your data if you ask us to, or if the law requires or allows us to.

We only keep this data for the time specified in our retention schedule or as required by law.  

Your personal data is processed (including storage) within the European Economic Area only.

Data protection law provides you with certain rights, however not all of these rights will be available to you in all situations, particularly where we process your information as part of one of our statutory duties.  Where we are under a legal duty to use data for a particular purpose you will not have the right to prevent it being used in that way.

A full list of the rights you may have, under data protection law, is given in the 'Your Rights' section on Data Protection - Privacy Notices.

For specific enquiries regarding personal data which we process you can contact the Data Protection Officer on dpo@staffordbc.gov.uk or at Civic Centre, Riverside, Stafford ST16 3AQ. 

If you wish to complain about how your personal information has been handled by us please contact the Data Protection Officer in the first instance using the details above.  If you are not satisfied you can submit a formal complaint to the Council via Complaints.

Finally you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, Tel: 0303 123 1113 or you can visit their website at ico.org.uk.

You can also find details of how we handle your personal information by visiting Data Protection - Privacy Notices.