Major overhaul of planning is agreed

Major overhaul of planning is agreed

17 February 2016

NEWRY, Mourne and Down Council is to implement a radical action plan to address major problems within its planning system.

The green light to make major in-roads into a huge backlog of 1,600 applications was agreed on Monday night after an independent expert said there are major problems and challenges with the planning system.

Mr Jim MacKinnon said he was “seriously impressed” with the way the local authority grasped the seriousness of the situation within its planning service and the energy it injected to address some of the issues.

His recommendations were made public after it was revealed almost 390 applications have been in the planning system for over 12 months and over 140 of those have been waiting for a decision for more than two years. Planners are also taking over 32 weeks to get a planning decision for run-of-the mill applications — more than twice the target time of 15 weeks. Major planning applications have a target time of 30 weeks but local planners are taking over a year before decisions are being made. 

Describing performance targets as “very generous,” Mr Mackinnon said the council inherited 1,100 planning applications from the Department of Environment and a “clearly insufficient” number of planners transferred to the new council.

Plans will be put in place to simplify and streamline the current process. All cases will be allocated a case officer within 24 hours of validation and additional planning committee meetings will be held. 

Councillors have agreed to suspend work on the new area plan for six weeks to free up staff to reduce the huge number of applications in the system. Consultants will be appointed on a short term basis to focus on more detailed and complex planning applications and ongoing planning appeals.

Mr Mackinnon said planners need to understand their role as “facilitators and enablers of development.” Significantly, the action plan calls for the creation of what is considered an “acceptable submission” and issued by way of guidance to agents and developers. Where applications fall short of the expected standard, they will be refused.

Mr Mackinnon described the current IT system as a “bit of a disaster area and not conducive to efficient handling of applications.” He said although 90 per cent of applications in the council area are approved, the widespread perception is that the default position of the planning service is ‘no’ and planners are not really seen as a group of people who want to facilitate and enable development.

He continued: “You have got so many applications and I know some progress has been made identifying those which raise no issues of policy, no issues of political sensitivity so can we just get them out the door.

“There is going to be a rump of more difficult applications which have to be identified and I have talked about contracting these out to some form of consultancy. I am not in favour of contracting out public services, but you need to take drastic action to get these decisions out the door. 

“The transfer of planning power to local authorities is one I am enthusiastic about, but there is still a culture of a central government department and quite a strong feeling that there is a lack of customer focus. This kind of approach becomes institutionalised and is far from what the council is looking for.”

Councillor Jarlath Tinnelly, chairman of the council’s planning committee, said the local authority has listened to the very real concerns of local people and, acting on these, agreed a series of wide-ranging improvements in the planning system.