▲Development Consent Order · Planning Act 2008
Run the whole consent on one live examination clock.
A Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project is hundreds of controlled documents on a six-month statutory clock. ConsentPath puts the application library, the examination timetable, and the people working on it onto a single board, with the Environmental Statement as one document among many.
A consent application is not one document. It is hundreds, on a clock that does not stop.
An application for an NSIP runs to hundreds of controlled documents: the draft Order, the Book of Reference, the plans, the Consultation Report, the Statements of Common Ground, and the Environmental Statement among them. Once the examination opens, the Examining Authority sets deadlines every few weeks for six months, and every one of them lands while the documents keep changing. Today that is held together by a spreadsheet of references, a shared drive of near-final drafts, and an inbox of the Authority’s questions. ConsentPath makes the application itself the single current view.
No single source of truth.
The Environmental Statement was always the hard part. Now it is one document of many.
If you already author your Environmental Statement in ConsentPath EIA, you have done the heaviest document in the application. The consent is the machine built around it, and ConsentPath now runs that machine in the same workspace, against the same model your chapters are written from.
One workspace, from the ES outward.
The Statement you write here sits beside the Order, the land documents, and the consultation record. They all read from one model, so a change in one is a change everywhere, and the library stays consistent without anyone reconciling it by hand.
- >The same editor you use for the Statement: presence, anchored comments, track changes, and recoverable snapshots, now across the whole application.
- >References on the established numbering, so the library is export-ready from acceptance through to the final deadline.
- >No second tool for the consent. The Statement and the Order live together rather than in two systems that drift apart.
Six symbols, read off one sheet.
Everything on the board above is driven by the same set of capabilities. Read them as a sheet legend: each numbered entry is a feature you will use from pre-application through to the decision.
Examination timetable
Map the Rule 8 timetable onto a live board. Every required submission, written representations, responses to the Authority’s questions, updated common ground, sits against its deadline with an owner and a status, and the six-month clock is visible to the whole team at once.
ExaminationControlled document library
Every application document carries its controlled reference, from 3.1 the draft Order to 6.1 the Environmental Statement, version-locked. Export a clean, indexed submission for each deadline with the references already in order.
LibraryStatements of Common Ground
Track agreement with every authority and statutory body in one matrix, topic by topic: agreed, under discussion, or not agreed. The principal areas of disagreement summary writes itself from the same grid.
SoCGExamining Authority questions
Drop in the Authority’s question schedule and it is split into individual questions, each routed to the discipline lead who owns it, drafted in place, and compiled into one response document for the deadline.
QuestionsRepresentations triage
Ingest every relevant and written representation from interested parties, cluster them by theme, and link each one to the chapter or topic it concerns, so nothing reaches the close of examination unanswered.
RepresentationsCommitments and Requirements
Hold every mitigation commitment in one register, each linked to the Requirement in the draft Order that secures it. Change a commitment once and the Statement, the Order schedule, and the common ground that cite it stay in agreement.
ConsentOne application, always in agreement.
The board is not a tracker bolted on top. It reads the same model the documents are written against, so a single change ripples consistently to every place it is cited.
See where every party stands, before the deadline.
Statements of Common Ground in one matrix, topic by topic and body by body. Move a topic from under discussion to agreed and the principal areas of disagreement summary updates with it, ready for the Examining Authority.
- >Live agreement state per topic and per statutory body, anchored to the document that evidences it.
- >The disagreement summary generated from the matrix, not retyped from scratch before each deadline.
- >Agreed points locked against a recoverable snapshot, so nothing reopens by accident late in the examination.
Commitments that hold.
Every mitigation links to the Requirement in the Order that secures it. Revise one and the Statement, the schedule, and the common ground follow, rather than drifting out of step.
The board is the real state.
Deadlines, ownership, and progress read from the work itself, so the timetable is never a stale copy of what was true last week.
Many consents, one scheme.
Group the Order with its associated applications, a marine licence or a related order, and roll progress up across them, with access still scoped per workspace.
Six stages, one statutory clock.
A Development Consent Order runs to a timetable set in law. Each stage carries its own clock, and the examination clock is the one that never stops. EIA Manager maps a feature to every stage, so the work and the deadline are never in different places.
- 01
Pre-application
Statutory consultationConsult statutory bodies, the local authority, and the community under sections 42, 47 and 48, and record how the scheme changed in response. ConsentPath logs every consultation event and builds the Consultation Report as you go.
Consultation log You said, we did - 02
Acceptance
28 daysThe Planning Inspectorate decides whether the application can be examined. Submit a complete, correctly referenced library, not a folder of near-final drafts.
Document library Submission pack - 03
Pre-examination
About 3 monthsInterested parties register with relevant representations and the Examining Authority is appointed. Ingest and cluster every representation so each one already has a home before the first deadline.
Representations triage - 04
Examination
Six months, fixedA written process with deadlines every few weeks. Answer the Authority’s questions, keep the common ground moving, and submit at each deadline from one live board that the whole team reads.
Examination timetable ExA questions Common ground - 05
Recommendation
3 monthsThe Examining Authority reports to the Secretary of State. Your closing case holds together because every commitment traces to the Requirement that secures it.
Commitments register - 06
Decision
3 monthsThe Secretary of State decides and the Order is made. The full audit trail of who changed what, and when, is already there to defend if the decision is challenged.
Audit and version history
Built for the way consent teams already work.
A Development Consent Order is drafted in Word, tracked in Excel, and lodged in the Inspectorate’s examination library, then held together by email through a six-month examination. ConsentPath keeps those jobs in one workspace, and you bring the work you already have.
Microsoft Word
The Order and the chaptersDraft the Order, the Explanatory Memorandum, and every Statement chapter as one live document, with track changes and comments.
Microsoft Excel
Trackers, retiredCommon ground, representations, and the Authority’s questions become live boards that every document reads from.
Examination library
References and deadlinesEvery document carries its controlled reference and version, ready to export as an indexed submission at each deadline.
Put the whole consent on one examination clock.
Bring the Statement you already author here together with the Order, the common ground, and the Authority’s questions. One workspace, one set of references, one clock, from pre-application to decision.