AQW 11947/22-27

Mr John Blair
Alliance Party
South Antrim

Tabled Date: 15/05/2024
Answered On Date: 31/05/2024
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister for Infrastructure how his Department is addressing the issue of housing and infrastructure development in urban centres, whilst preserving green spaces.

Answer:

The planning system plays an important enabling role in facilitating the delivery of housing. My Department’s Strategic Planning Policy Statement (the SPPS), requires councils, in taking forward their local development plans (LDPs), to facilitate an adequate and available supply of quality housing to meet the needs of everyone and promote more sustainable housing development within existing urban areas. This approach supports the need to maximise the use of existing infrastructure and services, and the creation of more balanced sustainable communities.

The SPPS also recognises the benefits of open space (including green space). The SPPS’s key regional strategic objectives include, safeguarding existing open space; and ensuring that areas of open space are provided as an integral part of new residential development. The SPPS includes a presumption against the loss of open space to competing land uses.

Zonings for future needs in LDPs should take into account, inter alia, accessibility to and from existing and proposed housing areas; the contribution that open space can make to the quality of the environment, sense of place and community life; the importance of protecting linear open spaces such as pedestrian and cycle routes, community greenways, former railway lines and river and canal corridors; making adequate provision of green and blue infrastructure; and, identifying and designating areas of open space which perform a strategic function, such as landscape wedges in urban areas.

Councils are responsible for the determination of planning applications for housing development. In plan-making and decision taking councils will take account of advice from statutory consultees such as DfI Roads and Rivers and NI Water.