The Royal Town Planning Institute has strongly criticised the news first released to the media, that the Northern Ireland Planning Service is to redeploy as many as one in three of its employees – 269 staff.
RTPI says this will have a very significant effect on the capacity of Northern Ireland to move towards economic recovery, by severely impacting upon the capacity of the service to process planning applications from businesses and developers.
No distinction has been drawn between professional qualified planners and other staff – and the controversial proposals follow a NI Audit Office report showing that staff already have individual caseloads far higher than any other UK nation.
