350 local planningenforcement casesunder investigation

The office, which covers planning cases for Lisburn City Council area, has over 1300 enforcement cases which are being dealt with by five professional staff alongside administrative support. 350 of these cases are within the Lisburn area.

Mr Craig was given the information in an answer to an Assembly written question posed to Environment Minister, Alex Attwood.

“I am utterly shocked at the figures and at the lack of resources available to deal with them,” said Mr Craig.

“Within the Downpatrick office, there is a total of five professional staff who work on enforcement cases throughout Ards, Down, Lisburn and North Down. Clearly this number is not sufficient to deal with the high volume of cases in one of these areas let alone all combined.”

Mr Craig continued: “The Minister has outlined that extra resources will be deployed to overcome this large number of cases but I believe that if this question had not been asked, no action would yet have been taken in this regard.

“The fact that such a large number of enforcement cases are present in the planning system is a major concern. Undoubtedly, the impact this has on local planning applications is severe.

“Effectively, enforcement actions which are not dealt with in a certain timeframe could be given immunity which would therefore make a mockery of overall planning regulations,” he concluded.