ABC Council is supporting an end to a legal requirement to advertise planning applications in local newspapers.
But councillors – while agreeing with such a move – have drawn the line at backing a move to end the practice of writing to notify neighbours living close to proposed developments.
The matter came up during April’s planning committee meeting, when Robbie McNaugher, Head of Planning, presented a report on suggested changes to legislation as part of a Northern Ireland-wide review.
In January, the Department for Infrastructure wrote to council to advise it had started preparatory work with regards its second report into the review of the implementation of the Planning Act (NI) 2011. This followed a first review which began in April 2021.
At that time the council responded to the DfI’s ‘Call for Evidence’ in respect of the first review. DfI published its report on the first review in January 2022, which summarised the responses and a number of actions to be undertaken as a result.
The committee was told DfI is required to publish a second report into the review of the implementation of the Planning Act (NI) 2011 within five years of the first review report and had now written to council to advise it had started that work.
This was to bring about an “oversight of the legislative framework, underpinning the two-tier planning system and to assess whether it remains appropriate and fit for purpose”.
A report to committee explained: “Officers consider the planning system is generally working to achieve the objective of leading and controlling development in the wider public interest.
“However, there are still areas of legislation which create unnecessary delays and result in undue resource burdens on planning authorities and, notwithstanding the comments provided to the call for evidence in April 2021, officers would propose to make a number of additional comments in relation to Development Management, Enforcement and Local Development Plans.”
Among these was the issue of notifying the public of planned developments.
The council response had proposed that DfI should give consideration “to the erecting of site notices as an alternative to direct neighbour notification and advertising in local newspapers”.
And it added: “The current legislative requirements to advertise applications in the local press and notify neighbours should be replaced with the erection of site notices or another reasonable alternative.”
Mr McNaugher highlighted the need to “modernise” the issue of notifications.
Speaking at the meeting, he said: “There’s a lot of issues that have to be advertised in the local press and there’s no provision for site notices or for electronic communication.
“A lot of councils and other jurisdictions have apps that you can download and get notified, but there’s no provision for that at the moment.”
Alliance Councillor Peter Lavery proposed an amendment in favour of keeping neighbour notifications by writing out to “relevant residents”.
He said: “A lot of the complaints we get maybe from residents is that the radius of notification is not wide enough, so to go from what we have at present to writing out to no-one, I think it’s a step that I don’t think would be good.”
In terms of being required to publish planning applications in the local press, Councillor Lavery had agreed with the change suggested.
“I understand the removal of the notices from local papers, as maybe a lot of people just don’t read physical papers anymore, in terms of the site notice element as well.
“But I really think it is important that we maintain the neighbourhood notification element of planning applications, because I do think it is relatively small. In most areas it is just those adjacent to the premises and then the larger you get the larger that radius grows.”
Councillor Lavery proposed a “minor amendment” to retain neighbourhood notifications and express “council’s view that they remain as is”.
Sinn Fein Councillor Paul Duffy seconded the proposal, and pointed out the council had previously rejected a move to get rid of writing to residents to notify them of planning applications in their area.
Signage was also not wholly and solely ideal as a means of communicating with residents, as Councillor Duffy added: “The house could be right around the corner from you and you would never know what’s going up in their back garden which could come right up against you and you just don’t know, so I think neighbourhood notification is essential.”
The Head of Planning agreed to make the amendment before making the submission to DfI, with other suggestions including timeframes between making PAN applications and full applications, powers relating to outdated Tree Preservation Orders and a new category of development that fell outside of major or local as is presently the case.
