Newry Armagh Sinn Féin Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Planning PPS21 Meeting

Published: 27 January, 2009

Cathal Boylan MLA addressed a public meeting on PPS21 in Trian Armagh, on Monday 26th January the Sinn Féin MLA explained the new planning policy to a number of people, the panel at the meeting also consisted of Sean McPeake Sinn Féin councillor, and party spokesperson of the Rural Affairs, and Liam Ward Architect of Ward Designs Castledawson who have years of experience in the planning and design arena.

The changes between the planning policies in PPS14 and PPS21were comprehensively addressed before a question and answer session, which proved to be very informative with many queries and worries being addressed over a great number of issues, the Sinn Féin MLA said "Over the past number of weeks we have held a number of meetings across the North to inform people what PPS21 means for them, while as party we are not endorsing PPS21 and still have major issues to address we still feel that it is a vast improvement on PPS14, in the consultation on planning we raised 18 issues, 16 of which have been incorporated into PPS21 and the matter of Non Farming Rural Dwellers is to be looked at by an independent body which is to report in a few months time"

Cathal continued "This an area of concern for Sinn Féin, given the change in the makeup of rural dwellers over the past number of years; non rural dwellers can be anyone from teachers in local schools to saddlers or community workers" the MLA went on "We firmly believe that these people must be accommodated in any planning policy to allow rural communities to thrive and grow, and because of this have lobbied long and hard for their plight to be addressed, with the DUP still to be convinced that their view that only farmers are entitled to automatic access to planning approval on grounds of living with or near to their working environment is wrong