‘Unacceptable’ delay with Down Area plan

SIR, — What happened to the new Down Area Development Plan?

The last Area Plan ended in 2015, over four and a half years ago, and still no sign of the new one. In fact there is a rumour that it may not be ready until 2025.

This is totally unacceptable. What is the problem? Recently the Planning Office said it is having difficulty retaining and recruiting staff. To my mind this shows a problem with management.

Surely it’s the management who are responsible for ensuring the recruitment of suitably qualified staff and then retaining them. How many staff are employed and why does it take so long even for a normal planning application to be approved? If you look at the number of applications in the Down Recorder each week there are only about 10 or 12, so how are they overworked?

Also, the management who are drawing huge salaries should be accountable for the inadequate and inefficient running of their service. If this was a business and the production line was not delivering the end product, heads would roll.

When you think about it, four and a half years is an awful lot of man hours, so why is there nothing appearing yet? Somebody at the head of the Planning Service, as well as the CEO of the Council, must take the blame. I think it’s time the ratepayers had an explanation from these highly paid people.

Yours etc,

IRATE RATEPAYER,

(Name and address supplied).