To ask the Minister for Infrastructure to detail the criteria used to determine whether a planning application is defined as regionally significant, for the purpose of calling in planning applications from local councils.

Section 29(1) of the Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 allows my Department to direct that an individual application or applications for planning permission be referred (called in) to my Department instead of being dealt with by a council. This power is discretionary in nature and there is no legal limitation on its scope. The current planning policy context for the potential ‘call in’ of an application is provided by the Strategic Planning Policy Statement (SPPS) 2015 which states that the process provides a necessary safeguard where there are applications that raise issues of such importance that their impact is considered to extend to a sub-regional or regional level. It notes that this discretionary power will only be used in exceptional circumstances and that councils are best placed to deal with the vast majority of applications within their own council areas.

There are no specific criteria for considering whether or not a planning application should be called in from a council. Each notification, or third party ‘call in’ request, is therefore considered on a case by case basis.