Planning Policy Privacy Notice

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, Mount Pleasant Road, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN1 1RS.

Email: dataprotection@tunbridgewells.gov.uk

Telephone: 01892 526121

We collect information from you when you visit tunbridgewells.gov.uk; also when you contact us in writing, speak to us on the phone, by email or any other type of electronic communication, or talk to us face to face.

Contact information such as your name, email and postal address. Also any responses you make to Local Plan and planning policy related public consultations will be held alongside your contact details. We don’t collect other information you may feel is sensitive to you.

Public task.

Enable residents of the borough to have their say on future development in the borough, because it is in the wider public interest to do so. If you do not give us your personal information, we may be unable to provide this service to you. This is in the form of sending you notifications about Local Plan and planning policy related public consultations in order to enable you to have your say on future development in the borough. You can tell us to stop using your information at any time but we may have to stop informing you of future consultations.

Research and statistics

Anonymised and pseudonymised data may be used for research and statistical purposes. Any Data collected may be used for research and statistical purposes that are relevant and compatible with the purpose that the data was collected for.

Objective, our consultation portal software providers, will store your information for support purposes only.

When you make a comment on a Local Plan or planning policy related public consultation, your name may be published alongside your comment.

The Planning Inspectorate will also use your information. They may use it for their own reasons that are different to ours, but they still have to look after it in the same way. You can view their privacy information on their 'Local Plans: the examination process' page.

All representations will be forwarded for consideration by the person appointed to carry out an examination of the Plan. If you have indicated that you would like to take part in any hearing sessions that may be held, the independent examiner may contact you direct.

Sometimes we have to give it to other authorities, organisations or people. This would be for the prevention or detection of crime, or because of legal matters, for example. We don't need your consent to do this, but if we can, we'll let you know if we've passed your information on.

• Access – you can request copies of any of your personal information that is held by the council.
• Rectification – you can ask us to correct any incorrect information.
• Deletion – you can ask us to delete your personal information. The council can refuse to delete information if we have a lawful reason to keep this.
• Portability – you can ask us to transfer your personal data to different services or to you.
• Right to object or restrict processing – you have the right to object to how your data is being used and how it is going to be used in the future.
• Right to prevent automatic decisions – you have to challenge a decision that affects you that has been made automatically without human intervention, for example an online form with an instant decision.

We will only keep your information for as long as we need it. Once we no longer need it, we will keep it for a set period (a retention period) but not use it. When the retention period expires, we will delete your information from our records.

See our Retention Schedule for further details.

What security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of your information?

We are strongly committed to data security and will take reasonable and appropriate steps to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or corruption. We have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard the information you provide to us.

We want to ensure any information we hold is accurate. You can help us by promptly informing us of any changes to the information we hold about you.

There are no automated decisions in this process.

If you are accessing online services and are aged 13 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.

What are cookies and why are they used?

Cookies are small text files which identify your computer to our servers. They are used to improve the user experience. View what cookies we use and how you can manage them at on our privacy and cookies page.

If you would like to make a complaint regarding the use of your personal data you can contact our Data Protection Officer:

Email: dataprotection@tunbridgewells.gov.uk

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate number.

Alternatively, visit the Information Commissioner's Office website or email casework@ico.org.uk.