Bord Pleanála appeals set to reach record high

Appeals to An Bord Pleanála are expected to reach a record high of more than 6,000 by the end of this year.

Figures indicate that 16 per cent more appeals have been made to the planning board in the first six months of this year than were made in the same period last year. Statistics seen by The Irish Times, which will be released in the board's annual report later this year, show that 5,930 appeals against the decisions of local authorities were made to the board in 2006, a number similar to the annual total for 2005.

In the first six months of last year 3,383 appeals were made to the planning board; up to the end of June this year the number was close to 4,000 - a 16 per cent increase.

Despite perceptions of a slowdown in the construction industry, the board is likely to have received its highest number of cases by the end of this year. For the first six months of 2007 the number of appeals has already matched the total received in 1997, when 3,927 appeals were lodged.

The sharp increase is based entirely on a higher than ever volume of applications for planning permission being made to local authorities and not on a rising rate of submissions against planning decisions.

The number of appeals the board receives remains in the region of 7 to 8 per cent of all planning applications made to local authorities.

"We're not getting 15 per cent where 10 years ago we were getting seven and eight. We've traditionally maintained this 7 to 8 per cent of all cases on appeal . . . it's due to the pure strength of the economy," board secretary Diarmuid Collins said.

The board is not expecting a slowdown in appeals in the immediate future. Its contacts with local authorities indicate that applications for permission at local level are not falling.

The board said it would not be unusual for it to receive appeals from applications which originally came before council planners a year or more previously. Thus there would be a "time-lag" between any downturn and a reduction of appeals coming before it. However, present indications would not indicate an imminent slowdown.

Confidence in the fact that appeals will remain high is in part borne out by Government sanction for the board to recruit a further nine inspectors.

The new inspectors, who will bring the board's inspectorate to a complement of 64, are also required to bolster the numbers needed to deal with new planning applications made under the Strategic Infrastructure Act.

The Act - which came into force earlier this year - requires applications for projects of national or regional importance to be lodged directly with An Bord Pleanála in a "fast-track" process which could take as little as six months.

Already the board has had requests for pre-application consultations in relation to 53 projects and it expects to begin receiving fast-track applications from next month.