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Housing Growth allocations "gravely flawed"

27th August 2004 | back to article listings BACK    print this article PRINT

The Social Democratic and Labour Party Leader Mark Durkan has written to the Secretary of State asking him to directly requisition an immediate review of the housing projections used in the Regional Development Strategy.

Mr Durkan has described its housing growth allocations as "gravely flawed" and biased against the west in general and nationalist areas in particular.

In his letter to Paul Murphy, Mr Durkan called for an adjustment of the housing growth indicators stipulated for each district.

"The Regional Development Strategy indicated that there would be such reviews and adjustments every five years so there can be no argument in principle against such an exercise," he said.

"There is, however, a compelling argument against waiting for the first five year interval to undertake a very necessary corrective review.

"It is increasingly evident that the housing growth allocations to districts under the Regional Development Strategy are gravely flawed. The application of these indicators at Area Plan level is proving to amount to perverse planning, frustrating natural and sustainable development needs and trends.

"This is very pointedly the case in the west but also in a number of other districts. Those districts most markedly affected tend to have a more predominantly nationalist community background.

"The implications of this obvious differential effect are among the grounds for action being warranted by yourself as Secretary of State rather than just referring this issue to your ministers as a merely technical departmental issue."

He continued: "Adhering to the current Regional Development Strategy housing growth indicators would be to persist with a framework for strategic misdirection.

"This runs counter to the proper purposes of strategic planning. It also runs counter to your government's concern for evidence-based public policy to persist with new housing allocation strictures which confound the evidence from the 2001 census."

SDLP Regional Development Spokesperson Margaret Ritchie said a party delegation has met with the Equality Commission to launch the process of investigation of bias in the housing allocation figures.

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