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Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will set out the number of (a) planningapplications which have come before Ards borough council (b) which have come before Ards borough council with recommendationfor refusal, (c) the number of site meetings which have been requested by Ards borough councillors and (d) the numberof applications which have been overturned and given approval, each year for the past six years. [208979]Angela Smith: The information requested is as follows._________________________________________________________________________________________________.(a) Applications (b) Applications (c) Number of site (d) Change of opinion topresented to Ards recommended for refusal meetings requested 2 approvalborough council 12000 859 304 3-- 272001 961 392 3-- 482002 1,023 327 3-- 782003 1,092 295 246 1182004 1,222 200 178 35_________________________________________________________________________________________________.1 For the years 2000-02 the figures have been collected electronically and as a result include deferred applications presented tocouncil. For 2003 and 2004 a manual exercise was carried out and these figures relate to the number of planning applications takento council with an initial opinion to refuse. Deferred applications are not included. 2 Information on the number of site meetingsrequested is not routinely collected and extracting the information for the period from 1999 to 2002 would be at a disproportionatecost. 3 Not available.It is only possible to provide answers to parts a, b and d of the question for the last five years, as the information for previousyears is not held electronically by the planning service. Information for 1999 could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.There is no correlation between the data within a specific year. The data refers to the year in which (columns B and C) applicationswere presented to council and column D the year that the final approval decision was taken by the planning service. It cannot beassumed that the number of applications overturned in one year is directly related to the number of applications presented tocouncil with a recommendation to refuse. Neither can it be assumed that the number of site meeting requested relates to the numberof applications overturned and given approval. Due to the complexity of the planning process it can be a considerable time betweenthe receipt of an application and a final decision being taken. |