Written Answers to Questions - Northern Ireland Assembly

Friday 20 July 2012 Written Answers
Based on Court information extracted from DOE Planning IT data on 2 May 2012, the total value of
fines levied by the courts in respect of planning enforcement cases over the last three business years
amounted to £391,435. Table B below details the total value of fines levied by the courts in respect of
planning enforcement cases over each of the last three business years.
TABLE B
Business year 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 Total
Fines levied by the courts £125,000 £132,635 £133,800 £391,435
Prosecutions often take a considerable time to work their way through the court process. Therefore,
while the convictions in the tables above are listed against the year in which the case was heard in
court, the offences to which each case refers will almost invariably have occurred some time before
(typically 12-18 months previously).
Obelisk in Portadown Town Plaza
Mrs D Kelly asked the Minister of the Environment (i) whether planning permission was granted to
erect an obelisk in Portadown town plaza; (ii) what consultation was carried out and when; and (iii)
whether an Equality Impact Assessment was carried out.
(AQW 10999/11-15)
Mr Attwood:
(i) An application for planning permission to erect a 1.75metres high monument to commemorate
the Centenary of the signing of the Ulster Covenant was granted full planning approval on 21st
March 2012. The monument is sited in front of St Mark’s Church, Portadown.
(ii) The application was presented to Craigavon Borough Council on 31st January 2012 as part of the
streamlined procedure. It was advertised in the three local papers on 10th February 2012 and
83 adjacent properties were notified of this proposal on 7th February 2012. No objections were
received as part of this consultation process.
NIEA – Historic Buildings Unit and DRD Roads Service were consulted on 6th February 2012. Both
replied with no objections to the proposal.
(iii) In it role as decision maker on planning applications, the Department has a statutory duty, under
Section 75 (2) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, to have regard to the desirability of promoting
good relations between persons of different religious belief, political opinion or racial group.
However, it is not necessary to carry out an Equality Impact Assessment for each individual
planning application. An assessment against Section 75 was included during the processing of
the application as it is a material consideration and this is recorded on the file.
That said the issue of memorials is a sensitive and difficult one. I will consider further how these
matters should be managed including legal and equality issues.
Ofcom
Mr Flanagan asked the Minister of the Environment for his assessment of the average length of time it
takes Ofcom to respond, as a consultee, to a planning application.
(AQW 11010/11-15)
Mr Attwood: The median number of working days between an Ofcom consultation being sent and the
Department receiving a response during the 2011/12 business year is 16 working days. The median
has been used as the measure of “average” as this is standard planning reporting practice.
The Department holds Service Level Agreements with other agencies such as DRD Roads Service. The
target timeframe for Roads Service to respond to 70% of planning consultations is 15 working days.
Given that Ofcom are responding to planning consultations in a similar timeframe in the absence of any
WA 509