ABSTRACT
Northern Ireland has some of the most distinctive planning issues of any covered in this book, not simply because of the political border issues but also because of the turbulent history of the province and the sectarian politics associated with this. With a population of 1.7 million in 2006, it is much smaller in population size than any other region of the UK. However, Northern Ireland’s particular history means its political significance is far greater than its population alone might suggest. In this chapter we focus on how spatial planning has been embraced in the period since the 1998 Belfast Agreement (also known as the Good Friday agreement), which signalled a new era in Northern Ireland politics and in relations between the Republic of Ireland and the UK.1 Two themes dominate the chapter, the first of which is the development of the 2001 Regional Development Strategy for Northern Ireland, widely regarded at the time as an early exemplar for spatial planning in the UK. One of its most widely noted successes was in public engagement, while its main problems have been in achieving implementation.
