There is little point in having a planning system if it is toothless

Developers are frustrated by delays, neighbours are furious about reduced amenity, environmental groups point to our disappearing wildlife and crumbling historic buildings, architects say planners can’t read drawings because they’re only geographers or economists, the man in the street wonders how the latest tower block ever got permission — and planners stand in the middle of all this, taking abuse from all sides.

Since nobody is happy with the system the planners could argue that they must have got the balance right, but a report into planning in Northern Ireland recently published by Queen’s University and Cardiff University found that roughly 80% of people using the system believe that it does not look after the public interest, and that only 3% of citizens using the system feel that their views are taken into account — so something is very wrong.

One might start by asking why we have planning at all.

When the modern planning system was introduced after the war in 1947 its main priority was to stimulate redevelopment of areas that had been damaged by bombing, and to build an infrastructure that would revive the economy.

In England that was counterbalanced by the introduction of the system of listed buildings and recognition that there should be a balance between development and the protection of amenity.

In Northern Ireland we got the development bit, but listed buildings were not provided for until 1972, and the preliminary survey of our historic buildings was not completed till around 2000.

In the meantime we had the Troubles and many of our buildings were damaged or demolished before they could even be considered for listing. With that on top of the usual depredations of developers and roads engineers what has been left is particularly precious to us.

It could be argued that in the present day, far from stimulating development, the planning system should be there primarily to protect our environment and to deal with climate change.

Developers will always want to develop, and if they are prevented from developing one area they will move to another. If planners stick to their guns in protecting conservation areas and listed buildings, developers will turn their attentions to less salubrious areas where their investment could be genuinely beneficial.

Unfortunately we have a system which clogs up development by trying to tweak it instead of refusing it outright when it is inappropriate; and yet which eventually approves some 90% of applications.

So essentially we have a bureaucratic system which ultimately rubber stamps almost everything put in front of it.

On the rare occasions when an application is refused the applicant can withdraw it and try again with some modifications, or he can appeal to the Planning Appeals Commission, where over 50% of appeals are successful and the planners are overruled.

One curiosity of the planning system is that while the developer has this right of appeal, a person living beside the development - who it might be argued is more significantly affected by it than the developer is — has no such right.

While you wouldn’t want the planning system to be clogged up with vexatious appeals about minor alterations, the householder who finds a tower block going up at the end of his street has a genuine grievance — and it is one that will be shared by many others.

Third party right of appeal — as this redress is called — exists in many parts of Europe, including Ireland, but not in the UK whose systems we generally follow.

It seems a natural balance of legal rights to give the people affected the same rights as the perpetrator, particularly when the appeal is supported by environmental groups acting purely in the public interest.

Planning often came in for criticism when it was carried out by the centralised DoE with a series of codes and standards that were applied uniformly across the province. But we now have a dozen planning authorities, with each council devising its own variation on planning codes.

Add to that the role of councillors who may be lobbied by developers, and council officers who are anxious to increase potential rates income and attract businesses to their area, and we have a recipe for bargain-basement planning. There are of course councillors who support their constituents in trying to protect the environment, but too often they are a small minority.

The recent case of the Westminster housing secretary Robert Jenrick overruling a local council to grant permission for a multi-million pound scheme by a Tory donor shows how easily even a government minister can be persuaded to make decisions that favour wealthy developers rather than protect the interest of people living in an area..

We need a planning system that protects the environment, is not afraid to refuse unsuitable applications, and enforces breaches of planning law promptly and fearlessly. If it is a toothless bureaucracy then there is very little point in having it.

If you have a planning system — and most people would agree that there should be one — it must be seen to be fair and to act in the public interest.

It is not easy, but our planners should not allow the degradation of our built or natural heritages, should not pander to developers, and should valiantly seek to make Northern Ireland a better place in which to live and work.

• Marcus Patton is an artist and architect

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