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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
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