Local Development Plan Privacy Notice
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council is a registered data controller (ZA076984) with the Information Commissioner’s Office, and we process your information in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018.
Council collects and processes personal information about you in order to fulfil our statutory obligations, to provide you and service users with services and to improve those services.
This Privacy Notice relates to the personal information processed to develop the Council’s Local Development Plan (LDP).
If you wish to find out more about how the Council processes personal data and protect your privacy, our Corporate Privacy Notice is available.
Why are we processing your personal information?
- To enable the preparation of the Council’s Local Development Plan.
- To consult your opinion on the Local Development Plan through the public consultation process as well as other section functions.
- To ensure compliance with applicable legislation.
- To update you and/or notify you about changes.
- To answer your questions.
What is our lawful basis for processing your personal information?
Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for processing personal information and at least one of the following must apply:
- Consent: an individual must give clear consent for us to process their personal data and then only for a specific purpose.
- Contract: the processing is necessary for a contract the Council has with an individual, or because they have asked the individual to take specific steps before entering into a contract.
- Legal obligation: the processing is necessary to comply with the law (not including contractual obligations).
- Vital interests: the processing is necessary to protect someone’s life.
- Public task: the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.
- Legitimate interests: the processing is necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party unless there is good reason to protect the individual personal data which overrides those legitimate interests (this does not apply if you are a public authority processing data to perform your official tasks).
The processing of personal information conducted in regard to the Local Development Plan falls under category 5 above.
The legal requirements in regard to public consultation on a draft Development Plan document, including arrangements for the handling of representations, are set out in Regulation 17 of The Planning (Local Development Plan) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015.
What categories of personal data are we processing?
- Personal Information: Name, address, phone number, email address, signatures and site-specific details.
- Special Categories: We may, in some instances, process other sensitive data falling under this category particularly where it relates to a representation and/or correspondence you have submitted.
How do we process your personal data?
Your personal information may be held on the relevant Local Development Plan database(s) and/or the Community Involvement Register.
1. Local Development Plan: Representations Database
Under The Planning (Local Development Plan) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015, the Council is legally obliged, during the Plan preparation, to make the following documents available for public comment:
- Draft Preferred Options Paper.
- Draft Plan Strategy.
- Draft Local Policies Plan.
Representations received during the public consultation stages of the draft Plan Strategy and the draft Local Policies Plan must be published on the Council’s website and a copy made available for public inspection.
This will also apply to counter-representations.
Representations will be pseudo anonymized.
Names, addresses, personal telephone numbers, email addresses, signatures or any sensitive personal data will not be made public, but we will hold these on our Local Development Plan database.
The Local Development Plan will be accompanied by a number of assessments that are also open to public comment.
Please note that when, you make a response to any of these assessments, as with representations to the plan itself, this information will be made publicly available (with the exception of names, addresses, personal telephone numbers, email address, signatures or any sensitive personal data).
Some of the issues raised as a result of representations received through public consultation on the Local Development Plan may be included and referred to in a Public Consultation Report prepared by the Council.
This Report will be published on the Council’s website, shared with Elected Members and made available to the Department for Infrastructure and the Independent Examiner.
Whilst this report will not reference the name of a member of the public, it may reference the name of an organisation where it is stated that the representation is submitted on behalf of that said organisation.
2. Local Development Plan: Community Involvement Register
You may have submitted information via the Planning Department’s Community Involvement Form, in order to be kept informed regarding any Local Development Plan updates that we may issue.
By submitting this form, you have consented to the processing and potential disclosure of information contained within the form.
On this form, you have also agreed to the Council contacting you via your preferred method of contact.
Should you wish your name and details to be removed from the Register or to change your contact preferences, this can be done at any time by notifying the Planning Department in writing.
3. Local Development Plan: Land Database
The Council may hold information submitted via the Council’s ‘Call for Sites’ consultation or obtained from other sources.
The Local Development Plan Land Database will contain a potential pool of sites for consideration when preparing the Local Policies Plan.
In accordance with data protection laws, you should be aware that the Council will use information collected as part of the ‘Call for Sites’ exercise to inform spatial policy decisions within the Local Policies Plan and related evidence base.
The Council will publish the information received through the ‘Call for Sites’ as part of the evidence base for the draft Local Policies Plan.
The information will be pseudo anonymized.
Names, addresses, personal telephone numbers, email addresses, signatures or any sensitive personal data will not be made public, but we will hold this information on our database.
Where do we get your personal data from?
- Information provided by you in writing, including your name, address, contact details and signature.
- Information provided by you as part of our online registration or public consultation process, such as your name, address and email address.
- Information obtained by Council from other public sources.
Do we share your personal data with anyone else?
- Your information will be held by the Council.
- Your name, address, telephone numbers, email address or signature will not be published on our website or be given out in response to a telephone enquiry.
- We are required to share your personal data (including your name, addresses, personal telephone numbers, email addresses, signatures or any sensitive personal data) received during any public consultation period on the LDP with the Department for Infrastructure and the Independent Examiner as part of the Independent Examination of a draft Development Plan document.
Once shared, these bodies will be responsible for processing your data in line with the prevailing legislation. - We use a number of third-party data processors to provide the software systems which store the information you submit.
- If we receive an enquiry under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) or the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) we will not disclose your personal data.
- No personal information you give us will be used for commercial purposes.
Do we transfer your personal data to other countries?
It may sometimes be necessary to transfer personal information overseas.
However, any transfers must be made in full compliance with all aspects of the Data Protection Act.
How long do we keep your personal data?
Data held for the purposes of the Local Development Plan will be retained at least until it is adopted in full by the Council and as specified for planning documents in the Council’s Retention and Disposal policy.
Your information will be disposed of in a secure manner when no longer required.
What rights do you have?
- You have the right to obtain confirmation that your data is being processed, and access to your personal data.
- You are entitled to have personal data rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
- You have a right to have personal data erased and to prevent processing in specific circumstances*.
- You have the right to ‘block’ or suppress processing of personal data, in specific circumstances*.
- You have the right to data portability, in specific circumstances.
- You have the right to object to the processing, in specific circumstances*.
- You have rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling.
*Where the personal data is submitted in regard to a representation to a draft Development Plan document through the statutory public consultation process, the exercise of these rights will require the Council to treat the representation as ‘withdrawn’.
More information on your rights and how to exercise them is included in the Council’s Data Protection Policy available on this website.
How can you complain?
If you are unhappy with how your personal information is being processed, you can contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer:
Data Protection Officer
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council The Braid
1-29 Bridge Street Ballymena
BT43 5EJ
Telephone: 0300 124 5000
Email: dpo@midandeastantrim.gov.uk
If you remain unhappy, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO):
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Email: casework@ico.org.uk
Website: Information Commissioner's Office website
Changes to our privacy notice
This privacy notice was last updated in June 2024 and replaces the previous notice dated September 2019.
Our contact details
For any queries you may have in relation to the Local Development Plan, please contact:
Local Development Plan Team
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council
Silverwood Business Park
190 Raceview Road
Ballymena
BT41 4HZ
Telephone: 0300 124 5000
Email: LDP@midandeastantrim.gov.uk