Planning Gateway One - Summary
What is the Planning Gateway One team?
The PGO team covers the whole of England. The team is not regionalised like some other statutory consultees. Meetings with LPAs and others are held virtually using Microsoft (MS) Teams to expedite requests and make best use of time more generally.
Operational Support staff administer requests for advice and provide procedural support to the other team members. They are likely to be your first point of contact about a case and will usually arrange meetings and provide procedural advice.
Once the request for advice has been administered, the case is allocated to a Fire Safety Information Assessor (FSIA). They will provide advice on the application to the LPA or provide pre application advice. FSIAs are qualified fire specialists. As part of HSE, the PGO team also has access to a wide range of scientific expertise. The assessment of a scheme is conducted against fire safety standards by reviewing information in the planning application.
The team will usually access the local authority planning register to review the application documents and the LPA will send a link in any consultation request for this purpose. The HSE assessment is desk based and FSIAs will not routinely attend site visits.