Mr. Gavin Lawlor:

Absolutely. One of the biggest problems is community infrastructure and who pays for it. Is it a levy imposed on a developer, which has traditionally been the way? If I needed a site for school, a developer would give us the land for the school or make it available. Is it in the form of a community centre or a meeting room? What is it? The significant issue for all communities and developers the world over is the transparency in development contributions. Where is the money collected and how is it spent? This is not to say there are not priorities in certain local authorities to spend the money in ways that were unexpected but they should be accountable for how it is spent They should also reflect on it every time the contribution scheme is reviewed and state this is what has been done, this is what the money was spent on, this is what worked and this is what did not work. We advocate for an evidence basis. It is a great idea to spend more money away from roads and their maintenance and spend it on cycling, pedestrian and community infrastructure. We will get a great positive response if people are told we will spend money on a new playground rather than a new link road between two areas.

That is always going to be more positively received. Again, it needs to be evidence based.