Planning Services - Development Management

The proper handling of personal information by Carmarthenshire County Council is very important to the delivery of our services and maintaining public confidence.

Personal data is any information that relates to a person who can be directly or indirectly identified from the information. The terms ‘information’ and ‘personal data’ are used throughout this privacy notice and have the same meaning.

To ensure that the Council treats personal information correctly, we seek to adhere in full to the requirements of Data Protection legislation.

This privacy notice has therefore been produced to explain as clearly as possible what we do with your personal data.

1. The purpose for which we use your personal data

The information we collect about you will be used for the following purposes:

  • Householder enquiries about the need for planning permission
  • Pre-application advice
  • Dealing with planning applications
  • Receiving objections and representations regarding planning applications

The legal basis for the processing of your information is to comply with our legal obligations under the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 and other secondary planning legislation.

If you do not give us the information we need when we ask for it, this may result in us being unable to assist with your enquiry or deal with your application.

2. What type of information do we use?

We collect the following types of personal data about you to deliver this service:

  • Name
  • Your address, telephone number and email address, unless you use an agent and choose not to provide these
  • Financial details for planning fees
  • Information about your proposed home or development

3. Do we use information received from other sources?

To deliver this service, we only collect personal data directly from you or your agent and do not obtain information about you from any other source.

4. Transferring your information abroad

We use Microsoft Office 365 to process our electronic documents under the terms of a strict agreement, which safeguards your information. This personal data is hosted on servers outside the UK, but only in EU countries which are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation.

Your information will not be transferred outside the United Kingdom although some limited information about you may be published online, as explained below.

5. Who has access to your information?

If you make an enquiry as a householder, your personal data will not be shared with any other service within Carmarthenshire County Council, or with any third party outside the organisation.

When you contact us for advice before submitting a planning application, we share your name and address with the following recipients for comments, depending on your enquiry:

  • Relevant services within the Council, such as Highways and Public Health
  • Town & Community Councils
  • Local Elected Members
  • CADW & Dyfed Archaeological Trust
  • Welsh Government
  • Natural Resources Wales
  • Dŵr Cymru/Welsh Water
  • Civil Aviation Zone
  • DEFRA
  • Land Quality Advisory Service
  • National Grid
  • Network Rail
  • The Police
  • The Coal Authority

Once you make a planning application, we are required by planning legislation to make a register available for public inspection.  This will include your name, address and information about your development, but no other personal data about you.  We make this information available to the public via our website.

If you make an objection to a planning application and provide your name and address, then these will be included with the information published on our website.

There are also other specific situations where we may be required to disclose information about you, such as:

  • Where the Council is required to provide the information by law
  • Where disclosing the information is required to prevent or detect a crime
  • Where disclosure is in the vital interests of the person concerned

6. How long we will keep your information

We will keep your information for 15 years after the decision in accordance with the Council’s Retention Guidelines.

7. Your Data Protection rights

You have the right to:

  • Obtain access to the personal data that Carmarthenshire Council is processing about you
  • Have any inaccurate or incomplete information rectified (corrected)
  • Withdraw your consent to processing, where this is the only basis for the processing
  • Make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the independent body in the UK which protects information rights

In some circumstances, you may have the right to:

  • Object to the processing of your personal information
  • The erasure of your personal data
  • Restrict the processing of your personal information
  • Data portability

8. Contact details

For more information regarding this privacy notice and your rights, please contact:

Data Protection Officer
Carmarthenshire County Council
County Hall
Carmarthen
SA31 1JP

Email: dataprotection@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Contact details for the Information Commissioner’s Office along with further guidance on Data Protection legislation can be found on the ICO website .

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