Kimmins welcomes improvement in planning consultation response times
Date published:
The Minister was speaking as the Department published information today which reveals that 77% of planning applications which were subject to statutory consultation were responded to on time, that is within 21 calendar days or within an agreed extended timeframe.
The Minister was speaking as the Department published information today which reveals that 77% of planning applications which were subject to statutory consultation were responded to on time, that is within 21 calendar days or within an agreed extended timeframe.
Minister Kimmins said:
“I welcome this improvement in statutory consultation response times. These figures represent an increase from 74% on 2023/24 and are the highest recorded figures since 2017/18.
“This is just one area which has seen progress through the Planning Improvement Programme which is also reflected in the significant improvement in the average processing time for major applications in 2024/25, which saw the lowest processing times since the transfer of planning powers in 2015. This trend is continuing with major application processing times meeting the 30-week statutory target in the first quarter of 2025/26.”
The Minister continued:
“Of course I know delays remain in the planning process and I appreciate this can be frustrating and that further progress needs to be made. My Department will continue to work closely with local councils within the two-tier planning system to continue to deliver improvements which make a tangible difference to all citizens in the North and I remain fully committed to working with them and key stakeholders to deliver these improvements.”
Notes to editors:
- The Planning (General Development Procedure) Order 2015 (NI) requires local planning authorities to consult a number of specialist bodies before determining planning applications relating to certain statutorily defined development types.
- Statutory consultees are required to make substantive responses to the consultation requests within a specified timeframe. The data provided reports statutory consultations as on-time if they are returned within the 21 days or agreed extension.
- The report is available at NI Statutory Planning Consultations - Annual Performance Report 2024/25 | Department for Infrastructure. This is the most recent in a series of reports and it indicates that 77% of the consultation responses that fall under the scope of the legislation were returned on-time in 2024-25. This is the best performance that has been recorded since monitoring began.
- The Department publishes these reports as management information. As such they are separate from the accredited official annual planning activity statistics.
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