Planning application guidelines for medicinal Cannabis (FOI)

Request

Does Environmental Health have any guidelines on the information required for planning applications for sites being used for the cultivation and processing of medicinal cannabis?

There appears to be no consistency in the information being requested by the Department for these sites. For example, a number of sites have been required to provide various assessments, such as noise and odour, whereas other sites, with closer neighbours have not been asked to provide the same assessments.

Response

The Housing and Nuisance section of Environmental and Consumer Protection (ECP), formerly Environment Health, are consulted on a range of planning applications, particularly those where developments may result in matters which could fall under the Statutory Nuisances (Jersey) Law 1999, such as noise, light, odour, air quality and contaminated land, however, they are not limited to these.

When consulted into an application, ECP officers review the submitted documents to consider whether there are any matters which could potentially constitute a statutory nuisance as well as the likely impact and any potential mitigation that may be required.

The assessment involves officers using their knowledge and experience alongside relevant Jersey and / or UK guidance, relevant British Standards and similar. It may be necessary to request further information from the applicant to allow ECP officers to address any concerns or areas that were not included with the original submission.

ECP do have some standard consultation responses, but bespoke responses are sometimes required in relation to specific applications. 

Planning applications can vary quite considerably which is why there are differences in the ECP assessment responses for applications which may appear on the face of it to be similar. For example, sites can use different energy sources, odour extraction, ventilation, general construction, etc.

It should be noted that, any ECP comments provided relate to the specific planning application and matters which fall under the remit of the ECP Housing and Nuisance team. 

ECP do not have specific guidelines on the information required for planning applications for individual industries, such as the cultivation and processing of medicinal cannabis. 

There can be significant differences between applications which appear to be for the same general development meaning that applications do not always easily fit into one type of development or industry. As above, officers will consider relevant guidance and best practice.

It should be noted that on occasion ECP officers will be provided with additional information to aid their assessment which is not made publicly available but can impact on the comments provided.  For example, this could be due to the commercially sensitive nature of the documentation provided.