Planning applications privacy notice - Privacy notices

Planning legislation (the Town and Country Planning Act 1990) requires Herefordshire Council to make details of applicants and proposals for planning permission publicly available. These details include some personal information, such as names and addresses.

You need to be aware that when you submit a planning application to us, the application, plans and any related documents or comments that you send to us are permanently kept as part of the public record. We have a statutory duty to make them available for any member of the public to see (via our website www.herefordshire.gov.uk) and to have copies of. This includes planning application documents and consultation responses received in paper format, which we scan and keep electronically.

The information that you provide with a planning application will be processed by Herefordshire Council, which is the data controller for the purposes of the Data Protection Act.

The information that you provide for a planning application, including personal data, will be used to deal with your planning application.

The legal basis for processing the data is:

• Public task - the processing is necessary for the Planning applications team to perform a task in the public interest or for official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law (Town and Country Planning Act 1990).

Planning legislation requires Herefordshire Council to make details of applicants and proposals for planning permission available for public inspection. They are available on the Herefordshire Council website.

The name of the owner of a property or land, plus the address of that property or land, must usually be publicly available. Herefordshire Council is required to publish any comments (with the name of the person making the comment) received on planning applications, and they may be reported to the council's Planning Committee in summary form. All comments received are also available for inspection by the public, applicants and councillors.

If you are making comments on a planning application, to reduce the chances of identity theft please remember to:

• Include the minimum necessary personal information from correspondence - usually your name, address and, if you would like us to contact you in another way other than post, one form of other contact (telephone or email)
• If you wish to send in comments by email, send them as an attachment to the email rather than in the email itself, so that your email address is not shown
• We will take into account unsigned comments on planning applications, but does require a name and a postal address.

Details such as signatures, personal telephone numbers and personal email addresses are redacted before being published on the internet.

You have a number of rights under data protection law, including the right to request your information and to request that the information is amended or erased if incorrect.

To request your records, you will need to provide proof of identification and write to the Information Governance Team, Herefordshire Council, Plough Lane, Hereford HR4 0LE or email informationgovernance@herefordshire.gov.uk

You also have the right to make a complaint about our handling of your personal data to the Information Commissioner's Office.

If you have any questions or concerns about how your information is used, please contact the planning service in the first instance.

You can also contact the Data Protection Officer, Herefordshire Council, Plough Lane, Hereford HR4 0LE, email informationgovernance@herefordshire.gov.uk

You can find more information about data protection and how it applies to you on the Information Commissioner's Office website.

Planning services section