Moderation

What is moderation?

We check content submitted by you for our website before it is published.

Why do we use moderation?

We welcome debate and opinion about the services we offer (even if they criticise us). Depending on the area of the website, moderation may be used to ensure that our publication rules have not been broken, and/or to add a reply to the information before it is published/used.

Where is moderation used?

Planning and licensing application comments, events, social media feeds and epetitions.

Rules of publication

We reserve the right to edit, or not publish, submissions featuring any of the following:

• Offensive content, such as swearing, sexism, racism, homophobia.
• Material that libels, defames, breaks the law, or which might constitute a personal attack on a persons character or encourages other people to do so.
• Incorrect information that could mislead others.
• Personal details such as private addresses, phone numbers or other contact details or comments which directly or indirectly identify an individual.
• Spam, advertising or phishing/scam messages.
• Copyrighted material from other sites used without permission.
• Content of a political nature.
• Content which impersonates or falsely claims to represent a person or organisation.
• Content considered not relevant for the area or service provider it has been attached to.
• A formal complaint about the practice of a particular organisation. Instead, you will be directed to the appropriate complaint's channel.
• Refers to or implies a dispute or safeguarding issue. Again you will be directed to the appropriate channel.

Spellings and grammar

We do not edit spellings and grammar where it is a review / comment in a user's own words, but we will correct submissions to the events database.

The moderation process

Comments will be published within five working days of submission, unless it is an epetition.

If the moderator chooses not to publish a comment for a reason listed above, or any other reason, they will reply to the commenter explaining the reason and where possible give them the opportunity to make appropriate changes.

Comments will be checked with legal services where it is deemed appropriate.

Providing personal information

When submitting comments to a public forum you must provide your personal information, including a valid email address. You can however, choose to remain anonymous on the website. Please be aware of our privacy information before you send information to our website.

Disclaimers

Our moderation policy should be read in conjunction with the relevant disclaimers which appear prior to submission of your comments.

Social media

Our social media feeds are also monitored. Posts containing offensive, libellous or incorrect information will be removed. 

Unhappy with our moderation

The moderator's decision to publish is final. We also reserve the right to remove comments post-publication. If you wish to complain about a published comment, or one you have submitted which hasn't been published, please contact us.