Mr. Paul Hogan:

That is the intention. A development plan should be a sufficient basis for decision-making. One of the things that has been problematic is that a local authority can spend two years considering the review of a development plan and, thereafter, a whole load of things are left for local area plans. When someone comes along and seeks to undertake development, he or she may not be able to and, indeed, a member of the public may not understand, even after the development is published, what is permissible. It is really important that the development plan process enables decision-making to occur at any stage. The programme for area plans may be set out therein but what they are supposed to consider should be broadly scoped. The timeline might be a bit tight for area plans and within a year or two is preferable. That is an issue we are prepared to look at.