Press release

PPS 16: Paradise Lost

18 June 2013

Friends of the Earth have reacted angrily to today's announcement by Environment Minister, Alex Attwood, that the new Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 16 will be good for tourism. This policy makes it makes it easier to build in open countryside.

Friends of the Earth campaigner Declan Allison said:

"The Minister insists this policy is about sustainable development. Merely including the phrase doesn't make it sustainable though. True sustainability is about maximising economic, social, and environmental factors, not balancing one off against the others. This policy will result in the destruction of the very attractions the Minister claims he wants to protect."

He added:

"This Planning Policy Statement is yet another example of economic considerations trumping all others. The Executive is determined to create a planning free-for-all. We have already seen the Environment Minister's approach to tourism sites when he risked the World Heritage Site status of the Giant's Causeway, and when he allowed the unique Drumclay crannog in Enniskillen to be bulldozed.

Northern Ireland's most precious places are being sacrificed on the altar of profit."

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Published by Friends of the Earth Limited