Planning Portal improvements follow RSUA engagement in Omagh

Three specific improvements to the NI Planning Portal, recommended by RSUA to Fermanagh and Omagh District Council in March 2025, have since been implemented, members heard today at a follow-up meeting with the Council’s Lead Planner, Paul McDermott, and Principal Planning Officer, Darren Lawther.

RSUA was represented by Chris Allen, Richard Collins, Eoghan Devery, Colm Donaghy, William Dunne, Wayne Hazlett and Dan McNulty.

NI Planning Portal

At RSUA’s last meeting with the Council in March 2025, members made suggestions to improve the NI Planning Portal, namely:

• Documents should be organised according to submission dates.
• Documents submitted in error should be removable from the Portal.
• Payment exemptions (i.e. for non-profit organisations) should be better signposted.

The Council reported that each of these improvements have since been implemented.

Local Development Plan

The Council published its Plan Strategy in March 2023. The Strategy sets out how the district will develop over the plan period to 2030 and beyond. It establishes a strategic policy framework across a range of areas including housing, employment and infrastructure.

The Plan Strategy is the first document in a two-stage process, with the second being the more operational Local Policies Plan (LPP). Together, these two documents will form the Council’s new Local Development Plan (LDP).

The Council ran a Call for Sites exercise between April and June 2024. The high number of submissions received (over 300) has required planners to revise the timetable for publication of the draft LPP, which had originally been scheduled for Q1 2025/2026. A revised timetable will be publicly available in due course.

Planning Application Validation Checklist

The Council introduced a non-statutory Planning Application Validation Checklist in April 2023, which was put on a statutory footing May 2025. Since then, the Council reported that it is improving the efficiency with which submissions are processed.

RSUA advised that NI Water wastewater capacity constraints remained a critical challenge in meeting the Council’s development requirements.

The Council confirmed that, where appropriate, “negative conditions” are included in planning approvals. These allow developers to move forward while addressing water connection issues at a later stage.

Planning performance update

The Council’s performance data as per the Department for Infrastructure’s (DfI) annual planning statistics, issued on 26 June 2025, included the following:

• Major Applications (2024–25):
  • Received: 14 applications (equal to 2023–24)
  • Average processing time: 24.5 weeks (1.6 weeks slower than in 2023–24)
• Local Applications (2024–25):
  • Received: 796 applications (102 more than in 2023–24)
  • Average processing time: 10.2 weeks (3 weeks faster than in 2023–24)

The Council therefore met statutory targets for both Major and Local applications by 5.5 weeks and 4.8 weeks, respectively.

Staff considerations

The Council confirmed that staff training and development was ongoing, to ensure that queries from agents and the public was dealt with through the correct avenue and the advice offered was accurate and of value.  

It also said there was a strong internal focus on ensuring that allocation of applications to staff allowed for streamlined decision-making.

RSUA agreed that the Council was performing well overall and expressed its appreciation.

Additional items

The Council also informed RSUA that:

• It has developed a guidance document (currently under review) setting out how agents can make representations to its Planning Committee.
• It is facilitating a significant number of Pre-Application Discussions (PADs) and has secured an additional resource to enhance this service. RSUA members were encouraged to avail themselves of this where appropriate.
• It raised awareness of its Supplementary Planning Guidance documents, and they will explore with agents specific templates which should assist with submissions.
• New information submitted during the processing of an application should be submitted via the planning portal and not by email.

Further engagement

If you have any questions or comments about this meeting, or would like to join the RSUA Fermanagh and Omagh Local Group, please contact Curtis Large, RSUA Policy and Public Affairs Officer, at curtis@rsua.org.uk