Ms Deirdre Scully:

There is an option A and an option B process in the Bill for UDZs, where they are done with the full plan or otherwise. The dates should not differ for consultation on both of them. They are both looking at the same space and area. The decision about whether to go for a full-blown UDZ or a candidate one does not change the issues the community will have to address or bring up. It does not change the scale of submissions the local authority will get because ultimately the area is going to change. To treat one as a simple variation and the other as a more complex consultation is not an option when there is no real difference for the people who engage with the process. The dates should be the same as for option B. Option B gives more time than option A. Those dates could just be rolled over with a caveat that, for example, the council has a three-month window in which to move dates as to when the process is commenced. A simple statement like that in the Bill would give us the space to say that the Minister had commenced the legislation on such a date and wrote to us within a month or so of the guidelines being issued, which was three months later. There is a series of dates that are tightly joined as to when local authorities will kick off the process.

If there was a statement saying that the decision of the chief executive to move the dates by up to three months is allowable to accommodate the consultation process at an appropriate time, something like that would just give us the breathing space and that would be a really good benefit. On the whole, regarding how much time is given, option B and option A should have the same dates.