Irwin quizzes Muir on planning delays
Newry and Armagh assemblyman, William Irwin MLA, has urged Agriculture Minister Andrew Muir to deal with the backlog of planning applications awaiting an official response from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA).
Mr Irwin, who is a member of the DAERA committee, has raised the issue of NIEA consultation response delays on several occasions, and the fact the time lapse was causing on-farm developments to be stalled. This week, he took the opportunity to raise the matter once again during official questions to the Agriculture Minister.
“Previous questioning on this matter revealed that out of 94 ‘on-farm’ planning applications with the NIEA at that time, 83 of them were running outside of the statutory response deadline,” Mr Irwin said. “I am aware this week of a very straightforward case where a farm related application requires, as part of the process, a bat survey which has been completed and submitted to NIEA many weeks ago. However, this has remained on a desk in NIEA with no response issued. Whilst I can understand a delay in the circumstance of a large project, one expects the more straightforward consultation responses to Planning Service to be much more rapid.”
Responding to Mr Irwin’s concerns, DAERA Minister Andrew Muir said: “I am aware of the challenges that relate to Northern Ireland Water being a statutory consultee in planning. We have put staff and new processes in place, but we need to do better. We are looking to recruit additional staff so that we can turn applications around more swiftly.”
He added: “I know that we need to move on the issue. We want to progress many issues in my department, and that is one of them.”
Mr Irwin welcomed assurances from the minister that further resources are being put in place.
“The farming industry wants to move forward with projects which aid expansion and improvement. However the planning system and the statutory consultees really need to improve their response times to enable final decisions to be made and projects to commence,” Mr Irwin said.