May 06 - Government Celebrates Over A Year of Transparency During Planning Process
The Government has today claimed that the openness of the Development and Planning Commission has proved extremely popular amongst the public and the press. Once the Government was elected, it was announced that DPC meetings would be held in public and would include the Environmental safety Group as a full voting member.
Members of the public, including those objecting to Planning applications also now have the right to address the Commission, as long as the DPC is notified in advance.
Town Planner and DPC Chairman, Paul Origo noted that it is important for the press to be able to attend DPC meetings.
Government projects are also required to be submitted for comment by the Commission. As seen during the last meeting, when the Sunborn project was outlined, members of the public are now invited to raise objections to Government Proposals. Mr. Origo also commented that although the Commission does not vote on Government projects currently, this may change soon with Government projects having to go through the full planning process.
Deputy Chief Minister, Dr. Garcia also commented, ‘the policy of the Government, at this stage, is that Government applications are now tabled before the DPC in public for guidance and advice. This will change in the next stage where Government applications will also be submitted to the planning process.’ He added that at first, many departments were simply not used to this procedure and a circular had to be sent by the Chief Secretary to all Government departments, agencies and companies explaining the policy of the new administration that Government projects should be sent to the DPC for advice.
The Government has insisted that It is no surprise that, after more than a year of the new openness within the Planning process, feedback from the public has been overwhelmingly positive. Indeed, the transparency of the new process now seems so normal that people can hardly believe the scale of the changes that have taken place.
