A city councillor has been left “flabbergasted” after a “blatant error” delayed plans for a £17 million civic centre.
The Newry city civic centre has been dogged by controversy with more than 2,500 parishioners at the nearby Cathedral signing a petition opposing the building amid claims it will leave them no where to park during Mass.
The chamber heard on Wednesday (April 30) that a “midnight” objection by Newry Parish was made over an alleged failure to submit a public consultation on time leaving a planning member “very concerned” at legal advice given to the council.
This resulted in committee chairperson, Declan Murphy (Sinn Fein) making a proposal for the matter be deferred, alluding to the absence of the council’s legal adviser in chambers.
Agent for the Cathedral Parish, Andy Stephens said: “I indicated in my correspondence last night (April 29) that there had been a procedural error in regards to the mandatory requirements of the planning development procedural order of Northern Ireland (2015), which requires for a pre-application community consultation report.
“That was not submitted on March 17, 2023, but July 3, 2023 and that is a fundamental and blatant error, which has tainted this application from the outset.
“To try to dismiss it as senior management has done, to say that this has already been considered is quite frankly unacceptable, it’s wrong and I am not going to sit here and listen to that, because it hasn’t been considered.
“I have had to go to the Environmental Information Regulations to get that information from the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) and that raises even bigger questions in regards to the processing procedure of this application that none of that information is online in the public domain.
“We are sitting here two years and one month later and the application was invalid from the outset and what we now have is trying to sweep over the tracks.
“Unfortunately the legislation can’t be side-tracked. The question then remains has this application been pre-determined on the basis the applicant – the council – has chosen to set aside the legislation.
“I need to be clear, as a mandatory requirement due to the legislative breach, this would be the fastest judicial review ever, end of discussion.”
On March 17, 2023 the civic centre plans were submitted to the Northern Ireland planning portal.
A petition with more than 2,500 objections was presented to the local authority last year with letters from Catholic parishioners, showing their opposition for the construction of the civic centre on a carpark used by Mass-goers at the Cathedral.
Newry, Mourne and Down District Council (NMDDC) has previously referred to a parking survey (2023) of the Abbey Way site and has amended its HQ plans to provide 138 car park spaces at the site, which it says is above the maximum occupancy rates of mass-goers recorded.
The Parish now alleges a procedural error by the council, centred around the initial application being submitted as a ‘local’ or small size construction, which did not require a public consultation.
However, the council, as the applicant, did not submit a public consultation when the building was identified as a larger ‘major’ application.
The objectors state that a public consultation should have been submitted before the full application was lodged to make it valid. But it was alleged this was not done until some four months later.
Independent rep, Jarlath Tinnely told the meeting: “I am flabbergasted at what I am hearing here. I have heard from the council in chambers that the validity of the issue was previously considered and that they have had advice.
“I assume you got advice because you knew this was going to be an issue. Who did you get that advice from? Because Mr Stephens is clearly stating that this is a legislative requirement. And I am also very concerned from what I am hearing from the council, that there is nothing to see here. This is unbelievable.
“Who realised that everything wasn’t hunky dory here? And why were these shortcomings and discrepancies not added to the file?”
The planning committee had previously approved the application for the local authority HQ in December 2024.
The Department for Infrastructure (DfI) decided in March 2025 not to ‘call in’ the application, without the need to refer to the department’s Minister.
This required NMDDC to hold a predetermination hearing on Wednesday (April 9) with final arguments made by objectors, Newry Cathedral Parish. The application had been recommended for approval on Wednesday (April 30).
A council officer responded: “The pre-application community consultation report was not submitted with the application in March 2023, because it was submitted as a local application, it was validated and once it was validated it was allocated and then reviewed for its content. Then it was considered to be in the realms of a major application.
“At that point legal advice was taken from Belfast, that was an internal procedure matter, which remains so. And the advice was that it was entirely acceptable to at that stage reclassify that as a major, get the pre-application community consultation report submitted, we’ll re-advertise the application and it can proceed from there.
“It was not submitted at the outset because it was a local. When it was submitted as a major, the information was requested and submitted.”
The committee members then voted to defer the matter with a future until further notice.
