Luton Borough Council

Planning service

Service privacy notes

We're committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. We have a data protection officer who makes sure we respect your rights and follow the law.

If you have any concerns or questions about how we look after your personal information, please contact us at [email protected].

As the planning department for Luton Council, we deal with:

planning policy
planning applications (including minerals and waste, listed buildings, trees and high hedges)
planning enforcement and appeals

Personal data

Personal data we will hold, include:

name
address
email address
telephone number
land ownership/ interest details
signatures
special category data (such as health conditions, disabilities, bank statements, tenancy agreements etc.)

We receive application information either directly from the application or via a planning agent on their behalf. Information is provided to us via:

the Planning Portal
email
paper copy
online form
direct secure access to our document management system
consultation portal

We also receive comments, representations, allegations, requests and questions via our online planning register planning consultation portal, email, letter and online forms and payments via the planning portal online payment portal, our own online payment portal, via BACS and cheques. The planning service will also be using a drone to improve our information gathering in the Borough to aide our Planning Enforcement investigations, our assessment of planning applications, our monitoring of developments, existing uses and the survey of sites for the potential for site designation for planning policy purposes.

The planning department your personal data to:

make decisions and provide advice on planning applications
make planning policies
work with neighbouring authorities on strategic policies
respond to allegations of unlawful development
monitor development
enter legal agreements, serve notices and promote the best use of land

Lawful basis

Personal data

Article 6 (c) - processing is necessary for the compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject

Article 6(e) - processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller

Special category data

Article 9(g) – reasons of substantial public interest (with a basis in law). Condition met under paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 of Data Protection Act 2018 – “statutory etc. and government purposes”.

Supporting information

The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 requires that public consultation be carried out as part of the decision-making process for planning applications.

The Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 set out the procedure for the adoption of a local plan, which too requires various stages of consultation.

To allow us to make decisions, we must be provided with relevant personal data. In a small number of circumstances individuals will provide us with “special category data” in support of their application (e.g. evidence of medical history). Processing of personal data is necessary to allow us to evaluate the impact of any development or policies in the Local Plan when undertaking its planning functions. For example, the address of a representor’s property may be relevant in this context. We are unable to consider the harm or otherwise from a scheme to the representor's property or amenities where the representation is anonymised and the location of the property is not disclosed.

We are obliged under the regulations to make some information available on our planning register. This is a permanent record of our planning decisions that form part of the planning history of a site, along with other facts that form part of the “land search”.

Your contact details and comment are recorded on our secure planning system. If you have requested to be entirely anonymised, only your comment will be recorded. If you have submitted an anonymous comment, we will not be able to inform you of any committee and/or appeal details.

Information on Planning Enforcement cases will be reviewed case by case to see what can be disclosed to the public. Any data or information that may be used in future formal litigation will be retained and not disclosed under legal privilege.

Any personal and private information obtained by drone use will only be used internally and not shared publically or externally unless consented by the individual.

Please see the Planning Advisory Service’s Planning and GDPR guide for more information.

Who we share your information with:

other teams and services within Luton Council where law permits, or it is necessary to do so
the Planning Inspectorate
planning committees
external consultees (e.g. fire service, water companies, the police, the environment agency, natural England, historic England, active travel England etc.)

Why we share your information

We are obliged to consult within the council, with external agencies and with residents depending on the nature of your application.

We will make details of planning applications available online so that people can contribute their comments, this will include the applicant/agent name and address.

We apply redactions to personal contact details e.g. telephone numbers, email addresses and signatures from public view. However, we will continue to hold the unredacted version on our planning system and this can be viewed by planning staff when necessary.

Please note: agents details are not normally classed as personal data.

We also redact special category data e.g. supporting statements that include information concerning your health and any information deemed confidential e.g. bank statements, tenancy agreements etc.

We will sometimes need to share the information we have with other teams within the council, to receive comments related to the decision-making process.

If you are submitting supporting information which you would like to be treated confidentially or wish to be specifically withheld from the public register, please label this appropriately. You can do this by contacting [email protected].

Planning Enforcement

We will keep completely confidential any details received about a planning enforcement complaint, including the details of the person making the complaint.

Further details regarding this is provided in the Council’s adopted Planning Enforcement Charter.

We will update the complainant on process with an enforcement complaint (as per the Planning Enforcement Charter).

Any automated decision making or profiling

None

Transfer of data to another country

No information within planning is transferred to another country. None of the systems we use are hosted abroad.

The majority of personal information is stored on systems in the UK. But there are some occasions where your information may leave the UK either in order to get to another organisation or if it’s stored in a system outside of the EU.

We have additional protections on your information if it leaves the UK ranging from secure ways of transferring data to ensuring we have a robust contract in place with any third party who may transfer it out of the EU.

If we need to send your information to an ‘unsafe’ location we’ll always seek advice from the Information Commissioner first.

Retention ('how long we keep your information for')

The data will be kept in accordance with our retention schedule. We only keep information for as long as it is needed. This will be based on either a legal requirement (where a law says we have to keep information for a specific period of time) or accepted business practice.

Exercising your rights

You have the right to ask us to amend or delete your data as well transfer or limit its use.

Each request will be considered individually. Where we are required to keep your data by law we may be unable to action your request. In all circumstances we will explain our decision making in writing to you.

Please see our main privacy statement using the green button below if you want more information on how:

we keep your data safe
to request a change to the records we hold
to make a complaint

Read our main privacy policy