Council blocked from relaxing rural housing rules

Stormont officials have ordered Mid Ulster District Council to scrap proposed planning policies which would have made it easier to build houses in the countryside.

The Department for Infrastructure (DfI) said the policies would undermine regional planning rules and could lead to "excessive development".

It said one of the proposals risked creating a "very wide interpretation of what constitutes a farm" for planning purposes.

Every council in Northern Ireland is responsible for drawing up its own Local Development Plan (LDP), which is then assessed by the department.

If the department decides the draft plan conflicts with the law or regional policy, it has the power to issue a binding direction to change it.

It has directed the council to change several proposed policies, including an attempt to relax the rules on building new houses on farms.

Stormont policy allows new houses so long as a farm is active and has been operating for a minimum of six years.

The council wanted to remove that "active and established" rule in some circumstances.

The department said that doing so "could permit dwellings on land that would never historically be regarded as constituting a farm".

It added that the policy could also "incentivise the artificial subdivision of farm units for the purpose of obtaining an additional dwelling approval".

It said this could ultimately result "in excessive development that will adversely impact the landscape character and natural resources of the rural area".

The council was also attempting to expand the definition of a gap or "infill" site to allow more houses to be built along rural roads.

Stormont policy allows an infill house to be constructed along a built-up road frontage.

Under that rule, there must be three or more existing buildings with small gaps between them along a frontage.

The council was proposing that an infill house could be added to a gap where there were just two houses.

The department said that would not be infilling a developed line of houses but would instead be creating a new built-up frontage.

It added that this would "give rise to a significant additional development pressure within the countryside of the district".

Mid Ulster District Council must now modify its draft plan to comply with the binding directions before the plan can proceed to formal legal adoption.

In a statement, the council said "a number of modifications" had been sought "including removal and modification of some of the council's proposed policies for single houses in the countryside".