ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how planning has fared from its earliest application to public policy in the region, its shifting operation within the complexities of regional government structures, including lengthy periods of direct rule, and the substantive challenges currently being addressed in a dynamic trajectory of institutional and practice reform. The chapter identifies some of the key legislative and administrative provisions that have helped shape planning governance and determine the scope of its regulatory intervention. It explores engagement of the post-1998 devolved institutions with town and country planning in Northern Ireland. The changing choreography of central government and local government relations is a core part of that narrative, but within both domains there are identified challenges that have implications for future planning practice. Three such matters can be identified for discussion in this concluding section: the role played by the Executive Committee of Ministers, the reshaping of department structures, and local authority capacity to deliver on its broad spatial planning responsibilities.
