Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether his Department issues guidance to local planning authorities on the weight to place on (a) individual public responses and (b) overall local public opinion when processing planning applications.

Where a material consideration is raised through public consultation, the weight to be given to that consideration is a question for the decision maker and will depend on the circumstances of the specfic case (subject to the test of legal reasonableness).