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Rural house law review published New rural homes ban is 'unlawful'
(about 4 hours later)
A judicial review into the controversial rural planning law PPS 14 will be published later on Friday. A ban on building news homes in rural areas of Northern Ireland has been overturned in the High Court.
The legislation was introduced last March and limits building in the countryside. Judge Mr Justice Gillen quashed a decision by former Stormont Minister Lord Rooker on planning regulation PPS 14 and declared it unlawful.
The review was requested by Omagh Council, which said the Department of Regional Development did not consult properly before introducing the law. Omagh District Council, backed by Armagh, Coleraine, Cookstown, Moyle and Strabane councils, had said there had been no effective consultation.
The challenge over PPS 14 is supported by Armagh, Coleraine, Cookstown, Moyle and Strabane councils. The council welcomed the ruling, but added it did not want a "free-for-all".
The government announced last year that almost all new plans for single rural dwellings would not be considered. The Chairman of Omagh District Council, Bert Wilson, said - after the hearing in Belfast on Friday - that PPS 14 was "detrimental to rural communities and fundamentally at odds with sustainable rural development".
The restrictions were welcomed by environmentalists. "We are not advocating a planning free-for-all but planning which is based on local development plans proposed by councils, which will ensure that our rural communities can continue to thrive and be sustainable and that the traditional rural way of life is protected and safeguarded", he said.
They said the PPS 14 law prevented a bungalow blitz. The clampdown followed a surge in planning applications for new dwellings in rural areas, which had risen from 1,845 in 1994/95 to 9,520 by 2004/05.
The then planning minister, Lord Rooker, said that the measures were designed to save the countryside. It angered the farming community who claimed a ban on building a home for farmers' relatives would drive them from the land.
But the ban was welcomed by environmentalists such as Friends of the Earth which claimed it was necessary to protect rural areas from over-development, often referred to as "bungalow blight."