Time to take on suburbanite environmental thought police
Top political prize of the week must go to the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland. It has managed to find a policy decision which has brought the DUP and Sinn Fe¤ in together in solidarity and unified opposition.
The policy in question is the department’s new policy on rural housing development across the North - or perhaps, more precisely, the new policy to have no rural housing development.
This weekend brought to a conclusion a six-week ‘‘consultation period’’ following a ministerial edict that, in future, one-off housing in the six counties will only be allowed in the most exceptional circumstances.
Environment minister Jeff Rooker, another New Labour ladder-climber doing his stint ...
