Irishplanningnews.ie

Finally the Environment Minister has made appointments to An Bord Pleanála.  The appointments include an architect, a former An Bord Pleanala inspector, an archaeologist/town planner along with an environmental engineer.  Hopefully this will now enable the Board to deal with the backlog of decisions currently before them. Given the need to promote development in the country at this time it seems crazy that the delay in appointing members was ever allowed to occur.

Under the Planning and Development Act 2000 (as amended) An Bord Pleanala provision is made for 9 members to sit on the Board in addition to the Chairperson.  However, as it currently stands there are only 4 members sitting on the Board, including the Chairperson.  In my experience the bottleneck at An Bord Pleanala in terms of getting decisions out within the 18 week period has always been down to the size of the Board.  The inspectors have their reports ready on time but there are only 10 people to adjudicate on every appeal in Ireland.  Given that this 10 has become 4 the bottleneck is only going to get worse, irrespective of the fact that the actual number of appeals coming before the Board is lower.  To put this in perspective Read the rest of this entry »