Preifatrwydd

Planning Services - Forward Planning

The proper handling of personal information by Carmarthenshire County Council is very important to the delivery of our services and maintaining public confidence.

Personal data is any information that relates to a person who can be directly or indirectly identified from the information. The terms ‘information’ and ‘personal data’ are used throughout this privacy notice and have the same meaning.

To ensure that the Council treats personal information correctly, we seek to adhere in full to the requirements of Data Protection legislation.

This privacy notice has therefore been produced to explain as clearly as possible what we do with your personal data.

1. The purpose for which we use your personal data

The information we collect about you in Forward Planning will be used to assist with the preparation and formulation of planning policy such as the Local Development Plan (LDP) which includes receiving representations from individuals about the use of land.

The legal basis for the processing of your information is to comply with our legal obligations under the Town & Country Planning Act 1990, the Planning (Compulsory Purchase) Act 2004 and the Planning (Wales) Act 2015.

2. What type of information do we use?

We collect the following types of personal data about you to deliver this service:

  • Name
  • Your address and other contact details
  • Values of land, when we need to assess its viability
  • Any other information that is relevant to a site, such as access, infrastructure etc.

3. Do we use information received from other sources?

To deliver this service, we collect personal data from you but in some cases we also consult with our Planning colleagues in Development Management and Building Control to look at information contained in Planning and Building Regulations applications.

We also consult with other Council Services to get information that is relevant in relation to the formulation of planning policy.

The following types of information are obtained:

  • Name
  • Your address and other contact details
  • Values of land, when we need to assess its viability
  • Any other information that is relevant to a site, such as access, infrastructure etc.
  • Financial details relating to the viability of development sites, where they relate to the signing of legal agreements for the payment of financial contributions to the Council

4. Transferring your information abroad

We use Microsoft Office 365 to process our electronic documents under the terms of a strict agreement, which safeguards your information.  This personal data is hosted on servers outside of the UK, but only in EU countries which are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation.

When you make a representation about the use of land or planning policy, these are published on our website and can therefore be accessed online. The personal data we publish is comprised of your name, address, information about your interest in relation to the LDP and the land in question.

We are required under the Planning legislation referred to above to make this information available to the public.

5. Who has access to your information?

As above, we publish personal data contained in representations on our website.

We also make information held in hard copy format available for public inspection.

There are also other specific situations where we may be required to disclose information about you, such as:

  • Where the Council is required to provide the information by law
  • Where disclosing the information is required to prevent or detect a crime
  • Where disclosure is in the vital interests of the person concerned

6. How long we will keep your information

We will keep personal data relating to our work in Forward Planning permanently, in accordance with the Council’s Retention Guidelines.

7. Your Data Protection rights

You have the right to:

  • Obtain access to the personal data that Carmarthenshire Council is processing about you
  • Have any inaccurate or incomplete information rectified (corrected)
  • Withdraw your consent to processing, where this is the only basis for the processing
  • Make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the independent body in the UK which protects information rights

In some circumstances, you may have the right to:

  • Object to the processing of your personal information
  • The erasure of your personal data
  • Restrict the processing of your personal information
  • Data portability

8. Contact details

For more information regarding this privacy notice and your rights, please contact:

Data Protection Officer
Carmarthenshire County Council
County Hall
Carmarthen
SA31 1JP

Email: dataprotection@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Contact details for the Information Commissioner’s Office along with further guidance on Data Protection legislation can be found on the ICO website.