Two Councils Have Spoken. Now Their Local Development Plans Need to Say the Same Thing Portaferry and Strangford sit 0.6 nautical miles apart, separated by the Narrows and by an accident of local government history. Since 1 April 2015, Portaferry has been the responsibility of Ards and North Down Borough Council, and Strangford has been […]
The Case for Resilience: Why the Ards Peninsula Cannot Afford to Rely on One Crossing Strangford Lough Crossing (SLC) Campaign — for the latest evidence and updates, visit www.strangfordloughcrossing.org Michael O’Leary built Ryanair on one uncomfortable question: what happens when your only aircraft is grounded? You do not run an airline, or a country, on […]
The Inner Partition: What a Lough Without a Bridge Really Costs For years, this campaign has set out the case for a permanent crossing at Strangford Lough in terms of journey times, subsidy costs and traffic data. All of that evidence stands. But it’s worth naming, plainly, what the absence of a crossing actually does […]
Click on image above for direct access to Extension Calculator Knowing the Extension Cost Before You Call an Architect or Builder ExtendIQ gives homeowners and local builders a realistic starting point — before the first conversation happens. One of the most common frustrations in residential construction is the gap between expectation and reality. A homeowner […]
Strangford Lough Crossing — Interactive Feasibility Dashboard For the attention of: the Minister for Infrastructure, MPs, MLAs and councillors with a constituency interest in the Ards Peninsula, Lecale and Strangford Lough. Sixty years after the 1961–64 Stormont bridge proposal, and thirteen years after the Department’s last internal review, the case for a fixed crossing at […]
NI Planning Performance 2025/26 — A Practical Guide for ArchitectsRanked by processing speed, approval rates and major application throughput. All 11 council areas covered. Data: DfI/NISRA Q3 2025/26. By QUINTIN QS 1 Introduction Planning permission is the first constraint on every project. Before a design is agreed, before a contractor is appointed, before a foundation […]
Northern Ireland’s infrastructure record speaks for itself: schemes routinely run late and over budget, and the usual response is tighter cost control. That response misses the point. Standard Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) appraisals, while rigorous, do not capture what a delayed hospital, a stalled data centre corridor, or an unbuilt water treatment works actually costs the […]
Northern Ireland in Solution Mode: What If the Executive Is No Longer “Too Big to Fail”? Northern Ireland does not simply have an infrastructure problem. It has a growing problem of financial credibility, fragmented responsibility and confidence in the Executive’s ability to take difficult decisions and deliver them. For four consecutive years, exceptional Treasury support […]
Compiled from Department for Infrastructure (DfI) Northern Ireland Planning Statistics, 2016/17–2024/25. Published 15 July 2026. Every three months, the Department for Infrastructure quietly publishes a set of numbers that shape whether homes get built, whether businesses can expand, and how long ordinary people wait to hear back on an extension or a new build. Pulled […]
No Minister, No Business Case, No Rulebook: What DfI’s Own Paperwork Just Told Us Regular readers will know we’ve made the economic case for an independent feasibility study more times than we can count. This time, we’re not arguing about money. We’re pointing at the Department’s own filing cabinet. A Freedom of Information response landed […]