By Adam Morton
Despite having 1,036 live planning applications to deal with Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council’s planning caseload is “moving in the right direction” the local authority’s head of planning has said.
Addressing a meeting of the committee on Wednesday, July 5, Damian Mulligan said the number of live planning applications had decreased by 52 when June’s caseload figures were compared with those recorded in May.
He described this decline as “very good news” before noting that another three decisions made by planning officers have been called in by councillors for reconsideration.
“The number of decisions issued by the department in June was 187,” he said.
“The number of applications received over the same period was 135 and the live caseload is 1,036 which is 52 down on last month and this is very good news.
“It means our caseload is being driven down and going in the right direction. The number of call ins over that period was three which brings it to nine for the year to date.”
He also explained that another technical issue has hit the planning portal, which was introduced in December 2022, meaning Council’s planners were unable to present quarterly enforcement statistics to the meeting as planned.
“I just want to mention that we were supposed to bring an enforcement quarterly report to you this month but, unfortunately, we have not been able to gather those statistics because of an issue with the IT system,” he said.
“They will come before you at the next meeting [scheduled for Wednesday, September 6] and we hope in the interim we will be able to correct that and bring the figures to you at that point.”
ENDS
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