‘We were sold a pup on planning’ – Clarke

‘We were sold a pup on planning’ – Clarke

14 September 2016

THE chairman of Newry, Mourne and Down Council’s Planning Committee has claimed the Province’s new super councils were “sold a pup” when planning powers were transferred from Stormont last year.

Councillor Willie Clarke said massive backlogs of planning applications were handed over without the staff needed to process them, which resulted in major delays.

Newry, Mourne and Down Council — which faced the largest number of ‘legacy’ applications after the new councils took over — agreed last February to implement a radical action plan to address major problems within its planning system and reduce a massive backlog of 1,600 applications.

Former Scottish planning director, Jim MacKinnon, who oversaw a critical review of the local authority’s planning system, admitted while there were major problems and challenges, progress towards a more robust and fit for purpose system could be made.

He 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. 

Mr MacKinnon said Newry, Mourne and Down Council inherited 1,100 planning applications from the former Department of Environment (DoE) and that a “clearly insufficient” number of planners were transferred to the new council as a result of the review of public administration to deal with planning.

Councillor Clarke said it is clear the DoE “sold the councils a pup” when it came to planning. He said while powers were given over to the new councils, they came without the back-up staff to deal with them.

Welcoming plans for the chief executives and senior planning officials of all 11 councils to met with senior Stormont officials to discuss planning concerns, he hopes there will be a positive outcome.

While DoE has since been subsumed into the new Department of Infrastructure, the minister in charge, Chris Hazzard, has warned some of the councils are “falling foul of their new responsibilities.”

Councillor Clarke continued: “Newry, Mourne and Down had a massive backlog of planning applications and the DoE did not transfer sufficient numbers of staff for us to be able to deal with them.

“At one stage, we had around 1,600 applications waiting to be dealt with and we have now managed to get that down to under 1,000 which I think is a massive improvement and our planning staff deserve praise for the tremendous effort they have made.

“Planners were faced with an enormous task when the legacy councils merged and deserve credit for the way they have approached the challenge in front of them. The new council did order a review of its planning system which Mr MacKinnon carried out and we are now going to have an appraisal to see how things have progressed.”

Councillor Clarke said the fact the backlog of applications has been reduced by 600 is a credit to planning staff “whose efforts need to be recognised.”

He added: “Our planning staff have worked under tremendous strain and pressure and they share the frustration of many that when the councils merged they could not process applications as quickly as they would have liked due to staffing issues and the sheer volume of work they were faced with.

“Progress is being made and I hope this will continue and that the outstanding number of planning applications which have yet to be determined will continue to reduce. It is always good to improve the service we provide and I know it is a view shared by our planning staff.”