Mr. Paul Hogan:

In fact, the intention is to move away from that sort of mandatory position whereby every settlement of more than 5,000 must have a local area plan. It is necessary in some cases but it may be less so in others. It is to enable focus to be brought. There is a bit of a misunderstanding here because there are three types of plans named that there is somehow more work and more complexity. What we are trying to do is more appropriately focus the efforts of the local authority to priority areas where development is likely to take place while retaining the option to do a whole settlement plan in the context of the full version. We already have a mandate under the existing Act that has to do with local authorities co-operating. There is a relatively small number of instances where boundaries are close and settlements straddle those boundaries where a joined area plan would be required. There have been various attempts over the years to legislate for that. This is trying to tidy that up as well. Other than that, it is a focus of local area plans into the three different types with a view to retaining many of the current features.