Patsy McGlone 29th July 2009

MCGLONE WELCOMES RIGHTING OF PLANNING WRONGS

SDLP Mid-Ulster MLA Patsy McGlone said the higher rate of approval for rural housing revealed by his Assembly questions merely represents the partial righting of the deeply unfair Direct Rule ban imposed by the previous PPS14 policy.

He said: “The headline figure of 98% approvals under the current PPS21 should come with a health warning – it is just a partial clearing of an artificial backlog. Planning officers prioritised the applications most likely to be successful when the new policy came into effect last November, so the approval rate can be expected to drop dramatically soon. But there are still elements of the new policy that are unfair to rural people.

"In this country we have inherited a system of thriving scattered rural communities and we should seek to protect them and the countryside. I want to see people being able to live in the area where they grew up and this is some evidence of this starting to happen. Instead of seeking to dismantle our rural communities we should be looking at ways of making them work better and reducing negative environmental impact by better technology and site planning and tighter control of speculative building which has no relation to the local community.”

 

ENDS 29/07/09