Debate contribution: Planning System: Fundamental Appraisal
Debate contribution by Lord Elliott on .
- MLA
- Lord Elliott
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 12 February 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Planning System: Fundamental Appraisal
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4218231
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Planning is always an emotive issue. Sometimes, there is even an east versus west or a rural versus urban element. We hear all of this all of the time. We have heard a lot of criticism of planning officers and Planning NI, but let us look at the opposite side as well. Sometimes, the statutory consultees are extremely slow to respond and hold planning applications up significantly. Look at the agents who put in the applications: let us not let them away without some criticism. All those applications are supposed to be front-loaded now. Are they all front-loaded? Some of them are. We have some really good agents who do that, but some agents do not. The planning officers, to be fair to them, go out of their way sometimes to try to get that information in. They need that information in order to be able to make a reasoned decision or, at least, form an opinion. Let us look at the second point that I was going to raise around the Planning Appeals Commission. That body is part of the Department of Justice — or, at least, that Department is paying for it. Nevertheless, I understand that, within the past five years, planning appeals decisions have doubled, or somewhere in that region. Mr Buckley said that some planning appeals are taking over a year now: that is right. I think that the average is over a year for those that are oral hearings. I would have thought that, when it gets to the PAC, most of the information should be there. I am not sure what they are actually waiting on. While I am not hugely critical, I just want to know why. We need to know why before we can address the fundamental situation. The third aspect is around local development plans. The proposer of the motion will understand this. Fermanagh and Omagh District Council has its local development plan, but what has it done? It has created chaos among the development zones that are already in towns and villages, because those development zones are from the old area plan. They are still development zones, but now they have this white land that you cannot automatically get development approval for. It seems crazy that that land is still within the development zone, but you cannot get development approval for it. I think that it was unwise to bring forward those new area plans without having the development zones resolved. I think that they have put the cart before the horse on this occasion, if you know what that means, Mr Speaker. I am sure that you do. There is a huge amount of work to be done. To the councils that have not brought forward their development plans, I say to them now to please be mindful of the difficulty that we have run into in Fermanagh and Omagh and try to resolve that. You should learn from other people's mistakes.
I totally accept that, but I still do not know why it has taken them so long. Nobody can explain to me why it has taken them so long. The new councils have been in place for eight, nine or 10 years, and they still have not made that initial progress. My final point is on the agri-food business, which is mainly in rural areas. I have to say that there has been huge controversy over recent years about the designated sites and what you can put in place. It has got to the stage where significant agricultural developments are almost impossible to get planning approval for. That is not helpful for the economy, and it is not helpful for our agri-food businesses in Northern Ireland. I accept that there are issues around Lough Neagh and other pollution areas, but let us not always blame the farmer for this. It is not always their fault. There are many, many other issues, and we will probably hear a lot about that in tomorrow's debate. I ask that there be a reconsideration of the issue about the ammonia figures, and let us hear the justification as to why. It is stifling our agri-food industry, and, in some areas, it is going to ruin it. The other point on that is that it is actually going to make it worse, because some of those agri-food developments will actually improve the situation and reduce the emissions and pollutants coming from it, but they will not be allowed to do it because they cannot get planning approval for it. They are going to work within an old system and an old housing structure that is going to allow more emissions, whereas they could get a new development that would reduce those emissions greatly.
791 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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