Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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Question 154: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he plans to carry out a comprehensive review of the national spatial strategy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14906/11]

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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The 2002 National Spatial Strategy (NSS) is a twenty-year planning framework designed to achieve a better balance of social, economic and physical development and population growth between regions, and it provides the spatial vision and principles for statutory regional planning guidelines across the eight regions and for development plans at a local level.

A comprehensive review of implementation of the NSS was undertaken during 2010, culminating in the publication in October 2010 of the NSS Update and Outlook Report (available at www.environ.ie). This report reaffirms commitment to implementing long-term planning frameworks such as the NSS and identifies new priorities and objectives to deliver more consistent implementation at all levels, taking account of experience since 2002 and the new environmental, budgetary and economic challenges that we are currently facing. In particular, the 2010 Report identifies a series of actions in respect of: better alignment and prioritisation of sectoral infrastructure investment, improved governance at national, regional and local levels, and the promotion of more sustainable patterns of development, both in rural and urban contexts, through more effective, evidence-based planning policies, with the aim of maximising the role of NSS implementation in supporting overall economic recovery.

In addition, the adoption of updated Regional Planning Guidelines in 2010 for the twelve-year period to 2022 and the new legislative provisions to include core strategies in development plans, taking account of regional policies, targets and priorities, are further embedding the NSS principles into the forward-planning process, and should help to deliver more co-ordinated, coherent and sustainable planning outcomes.