ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FORUM

 

Meeting of the Infrastructure Sub-Group

held at 2.45pm on Monday 10th December 2007

in Clarence Court

 

 

Present:

Jim McCusker (Chairman)

 

Bryan Gregory

 

Doreen Brown

 

 

1.0              Apologies

 

1.1       Apologies were received from Mike Brennan, John Gilliland, Peter McNaney and Janice Treacy.

 

2.0              Note of previous meeting

 

2.1       The note of the sub-group meeting held on 10th May was agreed.

 

3.0       Investment Strategy for Northern Ireland

 

3.1       The sub-group discussed the draft Investment Strategy, which would be an agenda item and the next EDF Plenary meeting.

 

3.2       A number of issues were considered:

 

·         The work which SIB had commissioned from London Economics to inform the development of ISNI was still incomplete;

 

·         The profiling of funding in some areas raised questions about the ability to spend the large amounts indicated in the timescales involved;

 

·         It was not clear that ISNI was giving tangible recognition to the overarching Sustainable Development Strategy;

 

·         There was little detail available to support the analyses within ISNI;

 

·         There was a lack of vision of where we were expected to be by 2018, ie, what was the vision which the investment was designed to support?

 

·         There was a lack of overall coherence in the document;

 

·         The investment was not obviously addressing climate change issues; eg, flood risk management;

 

·         The economic justification for investment in roads was absent;

 

·         There was no mention of the possible impact of the 2012 Olympics or the Police/Fire Games;

 

·         There would be a negative impact on investment if there was a lack of confidence that the planning process would allow speedy delivery of schemes;

 

·         The commitment to overhauling the planning system was welcome, with a commitment to processing major proposals within six months.  But what constituted a major proposal?  And were there equality issues involved?  And would the delay in reforming local government delay the overhaul of planning?

 

·         The revenue consequences of capital spend were not adequately recognised.

 

4.0       Ports Policy Review

 

4.1       The sub-group considered a paper which set out the current position in relation to the Ports Policy Review; and, specifically the tension between dismantling some controls in order to remove the ports from the public expenditure system and the desire for an appropriate degree of public accountability.

 

4.2       The position of Belfast, with its substantial non-part land bank, threw up particular issues in this regard.

 

5.0       Future areas of work

 

5.1       The sub-group planned to:

 

·         Follow up on ISNI, examining the work of London Economics;

 

·         Consider the report of the Capital Realisation Taskforce, once available;

 

·         Continue to take an interest in the issues relating to the Ports, having regard to enforcement mechanisms elsewhere;

 

·         Consider the proposed investment development plans through which Departments would implement the Investment Strategy;

 

·         Consider proposed changes to the planning system and the planning policy framework to ensure that it was robust.