A record number of planning appeals has put An Bord Pleanála under such "severe strain" that it has fallen behind statutory deadlines for issuing decisions, its chairman said yesterday.
John O'Connor said the intake of appeals and major road projects to the end of September was up 13 per cent on last year, and 27.5 per cent on the 2003 figure.
"On present trends, the 2005 intake is set to exceed 6,000 cases, which would be an all-time record," he said at the launch of the board's annual report for 2004.
He said the proportion of cases being decided within the 18-week statutory period had fallen back from 85 per cent in 2004 to 82 per cent, while the number of cases on hand had risen by 24 per cent.
"The board is taking all possible measures, including increasing productivity, to ensure that a serious backlog situation does not recur, and to get back as soon as possible to achieving its overall strategic objective to dispose of 90 per cent of cases within 18 weeks."
Mr O'Connor said this "surge" in the volume of appeals reflected a general increase in planning applications to local authorities, particularly for large housing schemes, and was not due to a rise in the rate of appeal. In fact, this declined in 2004.
He also attributed the increase in development activity to the deadlines for tax incentives, and the replacement of low-density housing in built-up areas with apartment schemes and building houses on garden sites.
The number of appeals relating to larger housing schemes (over 30 units) on hand at the end of September was almost 40 per cent higher than last year even though the proportion of local planning decisions appealed declined from 7 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
The share of local decisions reversed by the appeals board was 32 per cent, up from 30 per cent in 2003.
However, appeals by developers against planning refusals fared better in 2004, with 28 per cent resulting in grants of permission compared to 22 per cent in 2003.
Third-party appeals against grants of permission were somewhat less successful in 2004, resulting in 39 per cent being upheld, compared to 41 per cent in 2003.
Nearly 30 per cent of all appeals were disposed of because they were either invalid or withdrawn.
Dealing with major infrastructure projects, Mr O'Connor said An Bord Pleanála had put in place systems to avoid undue delays. The average time taken to formally decide local author- ity projects in 2004 was 22 weeks compared with 26 weeks in 2003.
Decisions would be issued shortly on five national road projects, such as the Dublin-Waterford motorway and the Athlone-Ballinasloe stretch of the N4. Along with a sixth case yet to be heard, these would dispose of the remaining unimproved sections of inter-urban network.
Brian Hunt, the board's deputy chairman, said it had dealt with nearly 30 road projects since January 2003 involving several hundred kilometres of new or improved roadway. All of these had been approved apart from the 1km Athy inner relief road.
Mr O'Connor denied this remarkably high approval rate implied that the board employed "gung-ho engineers" to deal with public inquiries into major road schemes.
"I'm quite satisfied that we made balanced decisions taking all factors into account," he said.
The board is co-operating with the Department of the Environment in drafting the provisions of the Critical Infrastructure Bill, and will be "gearing up" to deal with a significant increase in its workload under the proposed legislation from next summer.
