AQW 1548/22-27

Mr Phillip Brett
Democratic Unionist Party
North Belfast

Tabled Date: 15/06/2022
Answered On Date: 23/06/2022
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister for Infrastructure to detail (i) the average time for a decision to be issued by his Department for a regionally significant planning application, in the last five years; and (ii) the number that failed to meet his Department’s timeframe targets.

Answer:

Data extracted from my Department’s Planning Portal, taken from the latest published information, indicates that the average processing time for the eight regionally significant planning applications (RSD) processed from date the application is deemed valid to decision or withdrawal from 1 April 2016 to 31 December 2021 was 172.5 weeks.

Two of the RSD applications were measured against the previous Departmental target, one was not subject to a Pre-Application Discussion and therefore did not fall under the remit of that target and the second met the target having been progressed to Ministerial recommendation in 19 weeks.

A revised target was introduced for the processing of RSD applications from date valid to a ministerial recommendation or withdrawal date within an average of 30 weeks in April 2019. This 30 week period for recommendation/withdrawal was exceeded for the remaining six applications.