Ms Deirdre Scully:

This new Bill has a positive approach to how the UDZ, as opposed to the SDZ, is done. One of the interesting things in the explanatory memorandum is the complexity of delivering SDZs and the challenge of a LVS element in delivering large-scale infrastructure, which has proven a drag on getting some of these schemes moving forward at the pace we hoped for. The UDZ is more beneficial in that it interlinks more strongly the LVS and the compulsory purchase order, CPO, powers. The whole justification for that is far better in this legislation. I presume this Bill and the future planning Bill will be amalgamated at some stage and the new concept will be more integrated. It will be good to see how they all fit together.

The way the UDZ legislation has been written in this Bill is a lot more inclusive and open. That is why we are asking for some elements of the public consultation to be extended and for a bit more flexibility about how the dates are outlined because for a local authority, once the Minister has written, we are locked into a timeline, which may cause problems for us as the process moves on, like in the development plan. We do not want to have public consultations for four weeks in the middle of the summer or over Christmas. Those are not good times. We would like a little flexibility included in the Bill to extend the timelines without crucifying ourselves on the other side as regards preparing the chief executive report because if we do extend them, that eats into the very short timeline we have for the chief executive report. We need that recognition to allow local authorities to make some local decisions about how those processes are run and to give more time to allow for better elements of public consultation to be planned and run, and to tackle these issues. What is being incorporated at a variation stage is quite complex and to run it is not the same as a simple variation to a development plan. What the public is being asked to comment on is a whole range of issues. It is not as simple as, say, the swapping of zoning. We are asking them to comment on, say, a brownfield regeneration site, around which there would most likely be a very large residential population. The public need more time to engage with that so we would like for those dates to be revised on that basis.