Mr. Paul Hogan:

We are aware of the correspondence. It came in through the Minister's office. We are considering it in the course of developing this legislation. As I mentioned, we need to be careful about how the mandatory consultation with elected members fits into the process. It must be borne in mind that the elected members make the development plan so, as the planning authority, they are the policymaking body. The making of decisions on planning applications is delegated to the executive. As I have mentioned already, elected members are in a privileged position in that they can make submissions on an application within the five weeks, to have those submissions recorded and to take it further from there if need be. How elected members interact with the process and at what point needs to be very carefully considered given that balance between that policymaking role, the duty of the executive to implement the plan and the existing right of elected members to make submissions and to appeal. We do not want to overload the process but we do want to enable people to lead a response. There is a very careful balance to be considered and we think we have already struck that balance.

With regard to the second issue, the prohibition on conflict with a plan, separate from all of this discussion, we want to strengthen local development plans, including county plans and local area plans. We want them to be more meaningful and more detailed to get away from everything riding on the planning application and allowing that to be the point at which matters are decided and decisions come as a surprise to people.