Minister signals planning changes on the way

The Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, has announced an overhaul of the way local authorities deal with planning applications - particularly in relation to applications for one-off rural housing.

The Minister said he wants the authorities - which have been criticised for delays and a lack of transparency in decision-making - to be judged by a new set of customer-response criteria.

Mr Roche said "reasonable proposals" for one-off housing "must" be accommodated by planning authorities. And he added that applicants should be able to assess their dealings with planning staff by "more comprehensive" performance indicators.

The move is likely to be welcomed by campaigners for rural housing who have accused planners of being responsible for a decline in rural population and have pointed out disparities between planning authorities.

At the core of the Minister's proposals are the development of more customer-friendly performance indicators based on individual experience of the planning offices.

In addition to standardised planning application forms announced by his predecessor, Mr Roche said criteria which were still being developed would "be based on the ordinary things that people will judge the local authority's performance on.

"How quickly can I get a pre-application consultation? How did the staff behind the counter deal with my queries? Can I check the status of an application on line and so on.

"We need to work out what indicators will really show the quality of a planning authority's performance," he said.

"E-planning will be critical in terms of opening up the transparency of the planning system and reducing the time needed for individuals to interact with the planning system" he added.

Mr Roche said even though his Department's Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines were only in draft form, Bord Pleanála and the individual planning authorities "have been urged to take them on board given the importance of the rural housing issue".

Arguing "it is reasonable that the housing requirements of persons with roots in or links to the rural community will be accommodated by our planning system" Mr Roche said the draft guidelines were based on good planning principles.

The Minister has previously clashed with An Taisce on the issue of one-off rural housing, the majority of which An Taisce argues is unsustainable, in terms of environmental issues.

However, the Irish Rural Dwellers Association has insisted that the current attitude to rural housing, particularly in County Clare, has been responsible for rural decline. The association has also been critical of media coverage of the debate.

In counties Kerry and Wicklow where a number of section 140 motions to force the county managers to grant planning permission are tabled at the start of most meetings, local people are particularly angry at what they see as a ban on such housing.

An Taisce has consistently argued that in many cases the planning application is badly sited, or is in an area of outstanding natural beauty or a candidate area for protection by EU directives.

The MEP, Ms Marian Harkin, last night gave a guarded welcome to Mr Roche's proposals. Speaking from Strasbourg Ms Harkin said the performance indicators for local authority planners were a good idea, but she asked "who is going to monitor them?" The campaigner on rural and development issues also said the new guidelines would be "just guidelines".

"We have seen how these can be set aside while local authorities can always claim to have regard for them. Dick Roche has gone about halfway, but the proposals need teeth, in my view they need a legislative framework."