THE Cornish Mining World Heritage Site partnership has published a draft Supplementary Planning Document and is inviting others to comment on it.

An SPD sits alongside the local plan and provides additional guidance on how to interpret policies in it, thereby supporting better planning applications that enable sustainable development while respecting the special characteristics of the globally significant mining landscapes in Cornwall and West Devon.

The Cornish Mining SPD explains in more detail the landscape features that provide evidence of the Cornish mining industry’s international impact in the 18th and 19th centuries and how the planning system should be used to protect these.

Julian German, chairman of the Cornish Mining WHS Partnership, said: ‘The Cornish Mining World Heritage Site is an extraordinary place, a designated heritage asset of the highest significance. With this status come both responsibilities and opportunities; by becoming party to the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, the UK Government is required to protect, conserve, present and transmit to future generations its World Heritage Sites.

‘The Cornish Mining WHS Partnership has commissioned this Supplementary Planning Document to explain how the planning system will be seen to fulfil these responsibilities and opportunities. It sets out what makes the WHS important, why it must be protected and how the planning system can help to do this. It provides advice for planners, developers and local communities on how the responsibilities conferred by this status can be taken into consideration while opportunities for sympathetic development can be realised.’

The consultation will be open until March 31, 2016. The SPD and an accompanying question-naire is available via the Cornish Mining WHS website www.cornish-mining.org.uk/planning-applications in printed form at libraries and One Stop Shops in Cornwall, or the West Devon Borough Council offices in Tavistock.

Responses can either be made online using the questionnaire or in writing to Cornish Mining World Heritage Site Office, Pydar House, Pydar Street, Truro, TR1 1XU.