Dr. Conor Norton:

The Part 8 process comes up again and again in our review of the previous literature and reports in this area and certainly in our consultation with different groups, the executive, elected members and the Travelling community etc. One of the greatest issues there is that we do not have consistent data for Part 8. There is no register we can refer to. Apart from what might actually make it through to the Part 8 process, we cannot monitor projects that start and do not proceed. I hope it does not come across like this. We are not pointing the finger at the local elected representatives. There certainly is a very significant responsibility with the local administration or the executive. We certainly got that from our consultation. Obviously, some of the recommendations we are making would improve the oversight and practice carried out at the executive level to support better local decision-making. That is around proper planning guidance, processes that need to be put in place, consistent approaches to gathering data such as identifying the real demand, best practice in location, sustainable development, and managing services and infrastructure, all of which are points the Deputy mentioned. There are issues, for example, around taking a more place-based approach to Traveller accommodation. Maybe it is part of an area plan and there is betterment for the local community embedded such as infrastructure or a park. There are many positives that could come forward from that. We would like to see better guidance around the processes and a more area-based approach to that.

On oversight, our recommendations focus on two areas in the long term. One is in respect of plan making, and this would be oversight of the executive and of the outputs, such as the adoption of plans etc. That would be the Office of the Planning Regulator and we make recommendations on that in the initial term. The second point is the new agency we are recommending that would have a broader role in monitoring delivery nationwide at some point. We make initial recommendations on governance and what an agency might look like. It is not very detailed and a great deal of work would have to be done on its architecture. Principally in respect of planning, they are the issues.

I will hand over to Professor Norris to answer the question about demand and what Travellers want. There are complexities here. We are recommending that even within the TAP and the development plan we must have a much more sophisticated approach to considering what really is the local demand and how the TAP, the housing strategy and development plan respond to that. There is an added complexity in that we are talking about a Travelling community. It is a bit more dynamic perhaps than a settled community and we have to be able to plan for that.