RSUA hosts General Meeting in Free Derry Museum

Posted 5 years ago

14/02/2020

RSUA President-Elect, Donal MacRandal, chaired the RSUA General Meeting which was held in the Museum of Free Derry in Derry/Londonderry. The General Meeting was followed by a Building Tour.

At the meeting, a number of issues were discussed, including:

An RSUA position paper on housing, which is to be shared with members in advance of a formal launch event taking place on 31 March 2020
The need for clarification on the status of the nearly-zero energy performance target for new buildings in Northern Ireland from the Department for Finance
A request for RSUA to meet with Derry & Strabane City Council to discuss matters relating to planning and design quality
Concerns around the outdated Creating Places document which was published by the DoE Planning Department in 2000. It was agreed to provide a list of issues for Ciarán to take to his meeting with Aidan Thatcher, Head of Planning at Belfast City Council on 27 February 2020. Members were reminded also to use the Living Places document as a guidance tool.

Following on from the success of the RSUA Study Trip in June 2019, a Hamburg Manifesto was published which encourages local authorities to lead the way on energy performance standards, makes recommendations on re-balancing public transport and provides guidance on the required level of investment to realise these ambitions. The Hamburg Manifesto will be available to members on the RSUA website shortly.