Alicia Kearns MP and 28 Rutland Parish Councils have called on Rutland County Council to extend its Rutland Local Plan consultation period by at least an additional month.

A letter, which was compiled over just eight hours, expresses serious concerns that the current eight-week consultation period over Christmas is insufficient and does not allow Rutland residents to adequately have their say on the proposed Local Plan, which will shape Rutland for the next twenty years:

The Preferred Options draft Local Plan Consultation (Regulation 18) is currently due to run from 13 November 2023 to 4:15pm on 8 January 2024.

A period of just eight weeks (including Christmas) is only two weeks more than the minimum guidelines, and four weeks less than the last local plan consultation period.

There are also concerns that Rutland County Council has held no public meetings, has not provided Council staff to attend meetings arranged by resident groups, has not provided printed copies of the Local Plan, despite Parish Councils offering to pay for printed copies, and is refusing to accept residents' responses if provided outside of the provided online form. All of which goes against best practice for consultations and leaves the Council vulnerable to challenge.

Alicia joined a meeting of Rutland Parish Councils on Thursday (14th December) hosted by Ron Simpson to discuss the Local Plan and the lack of adequate consultation was consistently raised. Alicia and the Rutland Parish Councils have therefore requested that Rutland County Council extends the deadline by at least a month, to 8th February 2024.

Alicia Kearns MP, Member of Parliament for Rutland and Melton, said: "I am deeply concerned that an eight-week consultation period over Christmas does not give Rutlanders adequate time to work through the sheer quantity of material set out in the proposed Local Plan – there are hundreds of pages to read.

"The Local Plan will shape the future of our communities over the next 20 years, so it is only right that Rutlanders are given an appropriate time frame to fully consider their responses and have their say – I cannot understand the rush nor the derogation of consultation.

"We are blessed in Rutland to have an engaged community and network of parish and town councils ready to contribute to Rutland's Local Plan. The Consultation should be designed to maximise this engagement, not minimise it."