Mid Ulster District Council: 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), external, 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”.