Minister in the North attacks planners over tower block refusal

The North’s planning minister today launched a stinging attack on officials in his own department for refusing permission for what would have been the region’s tallest building.

Sammy Wilson said the Planning Service’s decision to reject an application to build the 90 storey Aurora building in Belfast city centre was totally nonsensical.

He accused planners of ignoring the potential economic benefits of the project, particularly for the struggling construction industry.

“Planning officers have a role to play in kick-starting the economy and in this case they have failed and failed abysmally,” said the Democratic Unionist minister.

While Mr Wilson is in charge of the department, decisions on individual applications are the responsibility of professional planners within the service.

The East Antrim Assembly member, who is also a Belfast City councillor, said if he had the power to the make the call on the Aurora he would have definitely given it the green light.

“There are still those within the planning system who see their role as being totally divorced from the well being of the economy,” he said.

“They see their job as just ticking boxes, interpreting policies and quoting policies and don’t think they’ve a role in generating jobs, giving people a livelihood or generating economic growth.

“Some professional planners are so inside their own boxes that they don’t see the wider picture.

“There are currently millions of pounds of investment from private developers held up in the planning system.

“At a time when the economy needs a boost my view is we should be using the planning service to give it that boost.”

The city council has already asked the regional planning office in Belfast to reconsider its decision to refuse permission for the 109-metre tall residential and commercial high-rise tower. Mr Wilson has also scheduled meetings with the office to make his feelings clear.

If the planners don’t change their mind, the developers – McAlister Holdings - will have the option of taking the case to the Planning Appeals Commission.

Mr Wilson said part of the problem was the Planning Service had failed to develop a high-rise buildings policy – even though he had asked them to do so on coming to office last year.

He claimed some officials were fundamentally opposed to change and were letting their prejudices cloud their work.

“In a fast moving economy we have to have policies that respond to the kind of demands being made on the economy,” he said.

“And people within the system must not be allowed to resist that because of their own prejudices. There seems to be this view within the planning system, and not everyone holds it, but there’s a view that Belfast shouldn’t have high-rise buildings – that it should be a low-rise city, that tall buildings are somehow garish and cheap and detract from the city.”

The planners claim the Aurora’s proposed design does not fit in with the character of the site and surrounding area on Great Victoria Street.

The location sits beside a listed building but Mr Wilson said that was no reason to reject the application.

“If you look at London and other cities tall buildings are built next to listing buildings and in my opinion they very often compliment them,” he said.

“So the idea that this building would detract from other buildings around it is nonsense, just nonsense.

“They don’t detract from other listed buildings in other parts of the UK so I don’t know why we have to be so precious about it here.”

The minister agreed with the claim from developer Mervyn McAlister that the decision was effectively putting up a sign that Belfast is closed to investment.

“Here’s somebody prepared to invest £90m (€102m) on a unique building for the centre of Belfast and they are refused permission – you have to ask how does that make the city look to the international market?” he said.

The construction of the tower, which would incorporate 291 residential apartments and 7,000 sq feet of commercial space, would create 300 jobs over two years, according to the developer.

A key feature of the proposed high rise would have been a permanent lighting display on the roof simulating the ’northern lights’ astronomical phenomenon.

The name Aurora derives from Aurora borealis – the scientific term for the northern lights.