Ms Rachel Kenny:

No. I reiterate and reaffirm our involvement with the planning authorities at every stage in the SHD process and outside of it in terms of collaboration among fellow senior planners and those working in the planning sector we engage to improve our engagement level and processes. Before the board sees anything, the schemes that come before us are very much influenced by the planning authority, local area plans and so on. By the time we get to something, it has gone as far as it can go with the planning authority, which continues to work at our meetings and the application stage. I reiterate the fact that we are seeing no more of an increase in activity than we had with the appeals. All of the SHD applications that were submitted were objected to and, therefore, we assume they were appealed and decided by the board. The board is not engaging in any greater level of activity than would otherwise be the norm, and we feel the planning authorities are still involved at those three critical stages, namely, the pre-application stage with themselves, the pre-application stage with us, and at application stage. We very much listen to and take on board all of the views of the planning authority and local representatives, and we also consider the local area plans.