By François Vincent and Local Democracy Reporter,François Vincent, Local Democracy Reporter

Copyright northernirelandworld

The new rule will bring Mid Ulster District Council into line with all the other Northern Ireland local authorities, in that Principal Planning Officers will now have delegated authority to turn down planning applications, when required additional information has not been provided in timely fashion, without any requirement for these to be systematically presented to the Planning committee for a decision. The matter was mentioned at the latest Mid Ulster Policy & Resources committee meeting. The relevant agenda item stated: “The Planning Service Leads have noticed that there is an increasing caseload of deferred planning applications that is becoming difficult to manage. “Therefore, the Planning Service Leads consider that it is necessary to amend the [rules] to delegate to [them] the authority to issue refusals of local planning applications in specific circumstances. “For local planning applications, there has been an increase in the number of applications that are being deferred at Planning committee, with the current number being 218. “When a Local planning application is deferred, it is allocated to the Principal Planning Officer for the DEA in which it is located. “The Planning service currently have two Principal Planning Officers, and the increasing number of deferred cases is becoming increasingly difficult to manage, together with the day-to-day management of case officers and the work this entails. “Mid Ulster District Council is the only Local Authority who have not delegated any power to the Planning Leads for any refusals of planning permission. “In Mid Ulster District Council, all recommendations to refuse planning permission must be presented to the Planning Committee for a decision. “Members are being asked to allow the Planning Service Lead for Local Planning to refuse planning permission, on those applications where further information has been requested and not provided within the time frames provided.” Three options were tabled. The most generous one (option C) was being recommended – one that gives applicants and agents a total of six weeks for additional information to be submitted. It was worded as follows: “For those applications where identified information is requested to determine the application, but has not been submitted following a request to submit the information within four weeks, a reminder will be sent to allow a further two-week extension to the deadline. “In the event of the requested information not being submitted, a refusal of permission will subsequently issue.” Proposing that option C be approved, Councillor Wesley Brown (DUP, Magherafelt DEA) stated: “I [welcome] anything that we can do to try and improve the Planning. “Now, I know our Planning Department does a good job, but there’s applications that have been sitting for an awful long period of time and that are awaiting information. “So, I think it’s time we sharpen the pencil a wee bit. If we give them four weeks with a further two, I think we’ve given them more than enough time to provide that additional information. So, I’m happy to propose what is in the paper”. Seconding the recommendation, Councillor Seán McPeake (Sinn Féin) stressed the importance of informing agents know about the new rules: “Just to second it, and I think the planning officers would need to do a wee bit of engagement with the agents, once this new amendment is adopted. “We have been quite generous within the Planning Department to offer deferrals [to agents] coming at the last minute with sparse information, maybe in the evening of a meeting and all of that, and I think we need to just engage because we don’t want to see the constituents out there suffer as a consequence of this. “So there needs to be a wee bit of engagement with the agents to inform them of the new way we’re going to be doing things. “We had been the most generous [NI] local government authority of the 11 in regards to this.”