Mr. Paul Hyde:

Absolutely. Before the SHD legislation was put in place, there were 800 decisions on applications involving more than 100 houses from 2005 to 2016. These were decided by the board on appeal at an average rate of approximately 80 per year. Under SHD, we are not increasing the number of cases but we feel we are dealing with them in a more efficient manner, as is our mandate under the Act.

With regard to the points on the website and accessibility, I mentioned to one of the other members earlier that we were in the middle of an ICT transformation project and introducing a new portal and website on which we will host all of the application details. It is hoped that will be done by quarter 3 of 2020. While that is not as soon as we would like, ICT transformation projects tend to take a lot of time. We hope to have the information more accessible and downloadable at that time. Ms Kenny might have some comments on the pre-application stage with planning authorities.