Extending Existing Development Plans

The Alternative Would be Dysfunction

Extending Existing Development Plans

I was asked recently whether the Planning and Development Act 2024 ("PDA 2024", "the Act") is "explicit in how a Local Authority might have to extend an existing Development Plan if they don't have enough time to adopt the new 10 year plan" upon commencement of the Act. "Plans, Policies and Related Matters", including Development Plans, are dealt with in Part 3 of the Act.

The Present Position

According to the Government's Planning and Development Act 2024 Implementation Plan (March 2025) ("the Implementation Plan"), Part 3 of the Act will commence in the middle of this year. Other measures referred to in the Implementation Plan are already behind schedule and we can reasonably expect that the commencement of Part 3 will also be delayed. This Part, however, will be one of the first commenced, likely later this year.

The great majority of County Development Plans will expire between 2027 and 2029. Counties will have between 2 and 4 years in which to prepare a ten year Development Plan under the Act. I would be interested to hear your views but with all of the pressures faced by Local Authority planning departments, I would have thought that my interrogator has a point. It is possible that a Local Authority might be under severe pressure to produce a new Development Plan under the Act before expiry of its existing Plan.

The New Act

Section 68 PDA 2024 is the main provision dealing with the interface between existing and new Development Plans.

Section 68(1) provides that existing Plans will remain in effect until their expiry/earlier replacement, whichever is the sooner. I suspect that my interrogator wouldn't think much of any suggestion that existing Development Plans might be replaced sooner than they need be. This provision does not answer his question.

Section 68(3) provides that the Minister may, by order, "for the purposes of ensuring the effective operation of this Part, vary for such period as he or she considers approrpiate, the period for which a development plan continued in force under subsection (1) is to remain in force."

Section 68(3) concerns existing Development Plans, made under the Planning and Development Act 2000, which are continued in force under the (new) Act by s68(1). On any definition, the power in s68(3) to "vary" the duration of such a Plan obviously includes the possibility that such duration could be extended.

Discussion

The Ministerial power under s68(3) PDA 2024 is expressed to be "for the purposes of ensuring the effective operation of this Part". My interrogator is concerned with the situation in which a Local Authority cannot have a new Development Plan in place under Part 3 of the Act by the time its existing Plan expires.

The alternative to an Order under s68(3) would be a situation in which there was no Development Plan. That is not an attractive scenario but whether it is a situation that threatens "the effective operation" of Part 3 of the Act is a different question and one which will only be authoritatively answered by the Court.

Recently, in Protect East Meath v Meath County Council [2025] IEHC 149 the High Court declined to order the Council to prepare a Local Area Plan in the making of which it was in default. The principles identified by the Court are likely to survive the commencement of Part 3.