Leading Northern Ireland firm McCue Fit-Out has scooped both the coveted Retail Week ‘Store Fit-Out Company of the Year’ Award for its overall performance and the individual ‘Shopfitting Excellence’ Award, for its work with client Urban Outfitters at its Liverpool store.

The company which is renowned for its work with top brands such as Hamleys Toy Store, DW Sports Fitness, Starbucks and many others was awarded the accolades at a glittering ceremony held earlier this week at London’s Hilton Hotel, Park Lane. This follows on from the success achieved in May, when the company was awarded ‘Overall Winner’ of the Design Partnership Award, by the National Association of Shopfitters (NAS).

The Retail Week Interior Awards showcase the best UK retail interiors and shop fitting companies for their excellence and innovation and attracts the best in the retail store design industry.

Les McCracken, Managing Director of McCue Fit-Out said today:

“We are currently working on a number of projects across the UK bringing to life the innovative cutting edge store environments which the various brands we work with demand.

The Liverpool project for which we won the ‘shop fitting excellence award’ was our first Urban Outfitters store in GB and follows their distinctive brand image whilst drawing upon elements synonymous to Liverpool such as the Liver Bird and the Warehouse Docks, both of which allowed us the opportunity to showcase our interior fit-out management and specialist joinery skills, within what was at the time, Europe’s largest downtown regeneration project.

Delivering eye catching work is something we put a premium on and our dedication to excellence in every project has well and truly paid off, as recognised by our success in these national industry awards, of which we are very proud.”

John Ryan, Stores Editor, Retail Week said today:

“The Awards proved to be a fantastic night, bringing together over 650 retail professionals, making it the biggest year in the history of the awards.
Competition was fierce as entries this year exceeded expectations in terms of quality and quantity. Big winners on the night included Checkland Kindleysides and McCue Interior Fit-Out Solutions”.

SDLP finance spokesperson Declan O’Loan MLA has called for a long-term joint approach by all parties to the issue of social housing. Speaking ahead of the motion in the Assembly today (Tuesday), Mr O’Loan said:

He said: “This issue is too important for the arguments that we have seen. There are 40,000 applicants on the waiting list, half of those being in urgent housing need. In one year, 9,000 households are deemed homeless.

“Over the next two years, there will be funding deficit of £200million. Over the 10 year Investment Strategy to 2018, that shortfall will be £1billion. We will be addressing that against a background of reduced public expenditure.

“That is a stark challenge for the Assembly. It will not be resolved by criticising each other. We need a frank debate and recognition that this is a shared problem. The task is to put social housing on a sound long-term footing.

“The Housing Council has presented a good starting point in its document ‘Bridging the Gaps’. It proposes new thinking on developer contributions in the medium term, on new governance arrangements for the Housing Executive and permitting it to borrow, and enhancing the role of the private rented sector. The SDLP has proposed the restructuring of Housing Executive debt and the sale and leaseback of the Housing Executive headquarters. All of these ideas and more need to be debated.

“In the short term, more public investment should go into social housing. That will do more than anything else to counter the recession. House building is labour intensive, and for every ten jobs created directly, another seven will be generated elsewhere in the economy.”

The masterplan has been finalised following extensive consultation with stakeholders on the draft proposals for the revitalisation of the Greater Castle Street area which the Minister published last year. The Minister also revealed that a landscape architect has been appointed to produce designs to renew Bank Square.

Margaret Ritchie said: “I am grateful to all those who responded to the consultation. I hope that they will share my view that this final plan will strengthen existing businesses trading in the area, attract new investment and provide the potential to reinforce community links from the city centre through to the west of the city. It also holds the prospect of promoting new homes at the heart of Belfast.

“The final plan emphasises the importance of a revitalised Bank Square. A landscape architect has now been appointed to produce designs for this area.”

The proposals in the masterplan build on the area’s existing strengths, including a well developed independent trader sector and a strong and unique historic character. The historic street pattern will be preserved while new sustainable development, sensitive to the character of the area, will be promoted.

The Minister continued: “This means delivering ground-level street frontages complemented by a network of streets and squares. The plan proposes to revitalise the core of the area by creating a new pedestrian-only route linking Fountain Lane and Chapel Lane. This has the potential to increase retail, café and restaurant activity.”

At one end of this new street a new city centre square, to be called ‘Fountain Square’, is proposed. This ambitious development would significantly increase the numbers of shoppers and visitors into the area boosting tourism, economic development and the evening economy.”

In addition, several strategic development opportunity sites are identified which could be brought forward in separate phases to improve linkages to neighbouring areas.

More than two square kilometres of land in Belfast, much of it publicly owned, could be used to regenerate and reconnect communities within the inner and central city.

According to the newly-launched Forum for an Alternative Belfast, a ‘think tank’ which is aiming to create a strong vision for a new Belfast, the land is still lying idle after more than a decade of a construction boom which saw a lot of hastily-planned, profit-focussed development.

“Years of bad or mediocre redevelopment have continued to isolate large swathes of the city, creating ugly dead facades and leaving it largely empty at night,” said Belfast Forum co-director Mark Hackett.

“It’s hard to believe that an area the size of 500 football pitches is not being more productively used given that it is all located within a two kilometre walk of the city centre. This important, valuable land could be better-used to make Belfast a more vibrant, cosmopolitan city that isn’t disjointed by ad-hoc development.”

“We want to find out exactly how many people could be living within one and a half miles of the City Hall, however, our preliminary study indicates in excess of 20,000 extra people would comfortably be housed in the fractured inner city. With that comes the challenge of making new schools, parks and connecting with existing communities in an equitable manner – and doing so with development of enduring built quality” he added.

The Forum is bringing more than 70 of Belfast’s leading architects, engineers, urban planners, arts experts, community leaders together in a four-day ‘summer school’ to develop workable ideas to transform the city.

The ‘Fill Up Belfast’ Project runs from 10am to 10pm, Monday 17 August until Friday 21 August at the David Keir Building in Queen’s University, with evening discussion sessions open from 5.30pm for those attending after work.

“This is an intensive, voluntary effort by over 70 members to show civic leadership in the city,” said Mark. “The five-day ‘think tank’ will examine what would happen if we stopped leaving the development of our city to chance and instead started to plan a common vision for how we see ourselves in 2020. We want everyone to take part in the wider discussions.”

“Belfast is our city; it’s our environment, and it’s essential that we create and develop a place that’s accessible, connected and safe. It should be a good place to live in and a good place to invest in. This is your chance to affect the future of your city.”

Policy Planning Statement 5
Mr D McNarry asked the Minister of the Environment if the Court Service has indicated when a decision is expected in the case which is preventing PPS 5 regarding Retailing, Town Centres and Commercial Leisure Developments from being implemented.

(AQO 2868/09)

Minister of the Environment: There is no indication as to when a decision will be made on this case.

In a statement to the Assembly, the Minister told MLAs he had decided to clarify the situation to ensure planners could play a full and positive role in assisting economic recovery.

Mr Wilson explained: “I want to give decision makers the confidence and support to make judgements which will give greater weight to economic considerations wherever it is appropriate to do so.

“I want to give clarity and leave nobody in any doubt about how to deal with economic considerations.

“Full account shall be taken of the economic aspects of a planning proposal, including the wider benefits to the regional or local economy, alongside social and environmental aspects.

“Where the economic benefits of a proposal are significant then substantial weight should be afforded to them.”

The Minister said planners often faced competing interests when assessing development proposals and had to balance important social, economic and environmental considerations.

He told MLA’s the weight given to these aspects was a matter of judgement for the decision maker and would vary with each planning application.

Mr Wilson insisted: “The purpose of this statement is to provide certainty and give guidance so that the planning system can play a positive role in encouraging investment and kickstarting regeneration.”

The Minister said in order to do this, it was essential planners had all the relevant information about development proposals at their disposal.

He urged everyone involved in the planning process including developers, agents and public representatives to ensure all information about the economic benefits was supplied at the outset.

Mr Wilson said the Planning Service had already introduced a number of measures to facilitate economic growth.

These included:

•  The creation of two strategic project teams within Planning Service headquarters to handle large scale investment proposals;
•  The rollout of a streamlined consultation scheme to speed up the processing of non-contentious planning applications across all council areas. This had resulted in approvals now taking 24 working days on average to issue.

In addition, the Minister said he was urging developers to engage with local communities before submitting an application.

He said: “Too often it is only after an application is submitted that people hear what is proposed. Often they object to issues that could have been resolved if the proposal had been discussed beforehand.”

The Minister added a number of planning policy statements would also facilitate economic development including the revised and updated PPS4, draft PPS21 which contains policies for economic development in the countryside including farm diversification, draft PPS18 on renewable energy and draft PPS16 which will set out the policy for tourism facilities and accommodation.

The Scottish Government aims to deliver a modern planning system that is:
• Efficient: up to date development plans to be at the heart of an efficient system that provides certainty for users and local people
• Inclusive: local people to be more involved in the decisions that shape the development of their communities
• Fit for purpose: with a clear sense of priorities, and to address different issues in different ways
• Sustainable: development to contribute to economic growth that is sustainable. Planning will deliver sustainable development ensuring development is in the right place, and of, the right quality
 
Next Steps

Work is already underway to implement the provisions of the Act and the implementation timetable will be kept under review to reflect Parliamentary and commencement dates when these are confirmed.

Of most interest currently are the new provisions on the hierarchy of developments, the preparation of schemes of delegation under new section 43A of the Planning Act and the carrying out of pre-application consultation with communities. These provisions came into force on 6 April.

This early commencement is to allow parties to prepare for the main changes which come into force on 3 August and has no effect on applications submitted before 3 August.

Between 6 April and 3 August:

- planning authorities can prepare their schemes of delegation;
- prospective applicants who intend to apply for planning permission for major or national development under the new system on or after 3 August can carry out the necessary pre-application consultation;
- prospective applicants can also identify development requiring design and access statements where an application is to be made on or after 3 August.

On the 3 August, the new planning procedures on applications for planning permissions and appeals comes into force, including:

• the hierarchy of developments
• new planning application requirements (including pre-application community consultation),
• section 43A schemes of delegation
• local review bodies
• new appeals procedures and
• new enforcement provisions
 
Pre-Application Community Consultation

The revised legislation splits development proposals into 3 categories: national, major and local. Applicants for all national and major developments must undertake public consultation prior to the submission of a planning application. This is to ensure that communities are made aware of, and have an opportunity to comment on, such proposals before an application is made.

If pre-application consultation is required applicants must submit a Proposal of Application Notice at least 12 weeks prior to the submission of the planning application. The prospective applicant is required to indicate in the Notice what consultation will be undertaken.

The statutory minimum requirements are:

• The applicant must consult every community council whose area is within or adjoins the application site.
• The consultation must include at least one public event where members of the public may make comments to the prospective applicant on the development - details of the proposal and consultation must be published in a local newspaper at least 7 days prior to the event being held.
 
So What is Good Community Consultation?

A great deal of guidance on how to achieve effective community engagement already exists and PAN 81 provides useful guidance. The Royal Town Planning Institute’s publications Guidelines on Effective Community Involvement and Consultation and the National Standards for Community Engagement developed on behalf of Communities Scotland, are particularly useful and when followed can help plan, monitor and evaluate community engagement.

The National Standards have been applied to the planning system below and are ideally suited for use by planning authorities for development plan preparation, by applicants in pre-application consultations with communities and by people and communities in engaging on planning issues.

Standard 1: Involvement: Identify and involve the people and organisations who have an interest in the focus of the engagement.

Standard 2: Support: Identify and overcome any barriers to involvement.

Standard 3: Planning: Gather evidence of need and resources to agree purpose, scope and actions.

Standard 4: Methods: Agree and use methods of engagement that are fit for purpose.

Standard 5: Working Together: Agree and use clear procedures that enable participants to work together effectively and efficiently.

Standard 6: Sharing Information: Ensure necessary information is communicated between the participants.

Standard 7: Working with Others: Work effectively with others with an interest.

Standard 8: Improvement: Develop the skills, knowledge and confidence of the participants.

Standard 9: Feedback: Feed results back to the wider community and agencies affected.

Standard 10: Monitoring and Evaluation: Monitor and evaluate whether engagement achieves its purpose and meets the national standards for community engagement.

Pre-application consultation is a very effective way of ensuring consistent and appropriate community consultation which can improve the scheme, reassure the community and enable you to deal with concerns in a timely fashion.

Central Survey Unit of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) today published the latest edition of the Northern Ireland Construction Bulletin.

The primary measure of the value of construction output in Northern Ireland (the Index of Construction) is obtained from the Northern Ireland Quarterly Construction Enquiry (QCE). This is a statutory survey of construction firms operating in Northern Ireland. Each quarter a sample of construction firms is asked to provide details of the value of construction activity they have undertaken within NI in a specified period. The Index uses 2000 as the base year i.e. (2000=100).

This Bulletin provides a measure of the value of construction output in Northern Ireland for the period 1 October to 31December 2008.

Key Findings:

The provisional seasonally adjusted Index of Construction for the period 1 October to 31 December 2008 is 94.9. This is broadly similar to the level of construction output for the previous quarter (94.0). An overall downward trend in construction output has been evident since the second quarter of 2007.

Readers are reminded:

The figures reported above are based on returns from construction firms for the period 1 October to 31 December 2008;
Results, particularly for the latest quarter are provisional and subject to revision, as fuller information becomes available from subsequent returns in future quarters.

The planned publication dates of the next four quarterly Bulletins are as follows:

Construction Bulletin Date of release

2009 – Quarter 1 6 August 2009
2009 – Quarter 2 5 November 2009
2009 – Quarter 3 4 February 2010
2009 – Quarter 4 6 May 2010

The proposed hike is essential to save jobs within the cash-strapped Planning Service, Stormont’s Environment committee heard on Thursday.

A top civil servant told members that annual revenue from planning applications had dropped by £4.5m. Last year it had been been around £21m.

The committee heard that Environment Minister Sammy Wilson had already agreed to an increase in tariffs.

These currently range from £130 for certificates for minor home building work to thousands of pounds for major commercial and business developments.

The plan brought criticism from committee members who questioned the impact on an already struggling construction industry.

Stephen Peover, permanent secretary at the Department of Environment, said: “The intention is to come forward with a proposal for a 20% increase in planning application fees.

‘Laying off’

“If we were a business, if the department were a commercial business, I would be laying off considerable numbers of Planning Service staff because we cannot afford to pay for them.”

Chair of the Environment committee Patsy McGlone said additional costs would put an extra burden on those working in construction.

“I’m sure those of us who do represent constituencies with a lot of self-employed builders and contractors and the likes and people servicing them don’t rate a 20% increase in planning fees as any particular incentive to stimulate the industry,” said the SDLP Mid Ulster representative.

But Mr Peover said damage could be sustained to the Planning Service if the fees were not increased.

“We face the prospect of two real risks,” he said.

‘Staff on tap’

“One that there will be an upturn in planning applications, the economy will begin to improve, and we’ll begin to see planning applications turn up again and we will not have the experienced staff on tap to deal with them if we can’t afford to employ them.

“The second risk is we are proposing to transfer the whole function to local government in May 2011, less than two years away now.

“If we were to allow it to run down in the intervening two years we would be handing over to local government, possibly just at the time when an economic upturn is happening, an under-funded, under-resourced and under-staffed Planning service.”