Specifically relating to “granting” … none at all!

Chichester is the planning authority and makes those decisions, with local inputs provided by the Parish Council. IEL does aim to keep a positive liaison with the Parish Council and other organisations such as IFRA, planning enforcement, District Councillor Gareth Evans, the Highways authority including Rights-of-Way officer for inputs relating to road maintenance, plus the utility companies serving the village (water, electricity, BT) and police etc.

For any of these organisations above, IEL has no special powers beyond those of any other resident. However, where most residents might typically have 4 adjacent neighbours (left, right, front, rear), by contrast IEL has 400 neighbours due to the makeup of the private roads. For only this reason, IEL has more frequent opportunity to participate in such discussions, and so has built up some relationships.

IEL regularly attends the Parish Council planning meetings and has been co-opted to be able to contribute. We take a neutral stance in most cases as our primary objective is to support the PC with useful information where relevant. For example, if a planning application is going to conflict with the 30ft rule, or any matters relating to access such as sub-dividing a plot. Strictly speaking those restrictive covenants in deeds are a civil matter and the planning process remains independent, so this is done just for full disclosure.

There are some cases where IEL receives a lot of feedback from the residents as a whole, and so we can bring this to the Parish Council as the collective voice of the community. For example, where shipping containers have been left at a property for excessive periods, IEL brought this to the PC, who escalated to enforcement and were able at least to have the first container removed.

Recently Ifold has suffered some damage due to congestion during the build process for some developments, with fleets of vans and delivery trucks blocking the narrow roads, trashing the verges, and causing other cars to need to mount the opposite verge to get past. Because of this, IEL has started to request that as part of a planning application, the owner should submit an off-street parking and storage plan to accommodate their works.
Note that the verges are private land and NOT overflow parking or storage zones, so any damage caused (adjacent and opposite) must be corrected by the development property owner to avoid any action.