OPENING ADDRESS
Deputy Premier of NSW - Hon Dr Andrew Refshauge, Minister for Planning, Housing & Aboriginal Affairs

RESPONSE
Bob Harrison, President of the Institution Surveyors NSW

Michael Parkinson
Chairman, Cumberland Group of Surveyors

On behalf of the Cumberland Group I'd like to welcome you to our annual Development Seminar. This year's seminar promises to be our best yet with all the latest development issues covered by the leading experts in their field. Also at this point I'd like to thank the Cumberland Group's major sponsor, Legalco whose generous sponsorship is of great assistance in running these events and also our group meetings. Legalco provide on line survey search, DPs, title, Sydney Water Searches, company searches and business information. During the breaks today please make sure you visit all the exhibitors here in both the Lobby A and Lobby B areas. All are leading providers of hi-tech survey equipment, hardware and software are represented here today and you'll see some brand new releases.

Surveyors are one of the few consultants that are involved with development projects from the initial stages right through to the very end of the project. 4 years of university training in engineering, town planning, land and property law, precise measurement techniques, GPS computing and CAD, combined with consulting experience and ongoing CDP programs including seminars such as this places registered surveyors in the best position to advise clients and manage development projects from start to finish.

We have an excellent program arranged for you today starting with planning update covering some of the latest initiatives introduced by Planning NSW. Today we are honoured to have with us the Honourable Diane Beamer, MP to officially open the Seminar. Diane Beamer is the Minister assisting the Minister for Infrastructure and Planning the Minister for Juvenile Justice and also the Minister for Western Sydney. Diane Beamer was also previously the Mayor for Penrith. This dynamic lady balances three portfolios and a very busy schedule with successfully raising six children. The Minister's department has been very supportive of this Seminar and the profession for many years and I'd like everyone to give her a very warm welcome.

APPLAUSE

Hon Diane Beamer

Thank you very much for that introduction. It's a real pleasure for me to be here this morning and I thank the Cumberland Group of Surveyors for the opportunity to open the 2003 Development Seminar. I'd like to take this opportunity to give you an outline of the changes in government and specifically in the new Ministry of Infrastructure Planning and Natural Resources.

The new Ministry will continue many of the functions of the previous Departments of Planning, Land and Water Conservation and the planning functions of the Department of Transport. Equally organisations such as the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, State Forests and Heritage lie within this portfolio.

I'm sure you're all aware that this city is changing rapidly. It's population, housing needs, it's available resources to sustain growth, it's transport needs, it's employment needs and demands. Change as we all know is inevitable. No longer can we afford to plan this city on the basis of what I would call snakes and ladders process. Stepping your way up through the ladder, through a maze of plans, regulations, conflicts, interests out of step with the massive changes of the growing city.

Change however can present us with opportunities. We have for the first time the opportunity to provide an effective integration of natural resource management, land use and planning. The opportunity to develop a truly integrated vision for Sydney. One that can strike the balance between natural, economic and social outcomes an opportunity to rethink what we are doing, how we are doing it, and how we can deliver better outcomes for the people of Sydney. Massive change, huge challenges, but great opportunities. They present themselves at every level of government, industry and commerce.

Surveying, your profession, is a good example. Your traditional role would have been perceived as measuring the landscape. In the ancient world astronomy was a tool, surveyors in 2003 can find themselves studying global warming in Antarctica, having been involved in the precise locating of sections of the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, mapping underground utility services in busy cities, monitoring whale movements up and down the NSW coast, designing large residential sub divisions, leading oil explorations in Antarctica or having directed boring machines for the Eastern Distributor and the Airport railway projects.

The data that you use to do your job comes through earth orbiting satellites, air and seaborne sensors and ground based instruments processed by this state of the art information technology I guess a great change from the ancient art of astronomy. Your work can cover many disciplines such as planning, engineering, environmental studies and land development and many of these disciplines are an important component of the work now being undertaken by government and the new structure. Your profession is an integral part of the change, challenge and opportunities that we are all part of in planning our city and our State.

I'd now like to go through some of the change in the government framework. We are now investigating new infrastructure funding models. Assessing the planning system for NSW to make it more streamlined, efficient and effective and examining the removal of unnecessary red tape to provide a more simplified planning process. We are finding a planning process that can be easily navigated and which can deliver greater certainty to all parties. We need a clearer simpler and more effective DA approval process. We need to streamline our approach and govern the development of our city as we would the development of a growing business.

Sydney should be viewed as a number of cities, each with it's own business plan and strategy, each with it's unique vision. We do need to devolve responsibility.

In too many cases the department has become involved as a de facto local Council getting bogged down in local detail. Decisions which most directly affect local areas should be determined by the local community and those decisions that are strategically important should be undertaken by government. The key to managing Sydneys growth is to find a balance between creating the new and the growing. Already Minister Knowles has announced a review of Set 5 which will establish how we can best provide for the housing of older people and people with disabilities. The government also intends to focus on and accelerate the streamlining and improving the efficiency of the planning system started under Plan First.

Although effective in recent years there is a recognition that urban consolidation policies are unlikely to be sufficient by themselves in the light of growing housing pressure. New release areas will be an important part of this approach. Some 30% of Sydney's new dwellings continue to come from release areas in western Sydney. They will provide the bulk of new detached housing stock for the region. It is the governments objective to identify a 15 year blueprint where land is planned and developed in a new way which among other things ensures good urban design, housing choice, local employment and access to transport. The development of these new release areas doesn't mean more houses, it means that we are developing communities. It's about getting services and infrastructure to new communities at the time they are developed not lagging behind.

Best practice planning will be used in many new release areas. This government is also committed to improving the design quality of the built environment in NSW. This program began in February 2000 when the Premier called for an end to ugly flat buildings. Backed by $1.5 million in funding the initiative has made great strides in improving the design of residential flat dwellings.

But there is still more to be achieved in good design. I'm presently looking at this issue and talking to as many stake holders, interested parties as possible. Productive partnerships with the private sector demonstrate the remarkable things that we can do when we work together by engaging with industry, by initiating sustainable approach to development within an inclusive process we can make a powerful and lasting contribution to the urban environment. We can meet critical economic, social and environmental goals through public, private partnerships.

The main focus has been on Sydney as this presents a strong challenge but equally regional and especially coastal areas present their own challenges. There is no doubt that we are experiencing a sea change, people are on the move across the State changing homes and changing lifestyles. This presents new challenges and opportunities for planning. Regional plans will become important tools in the planning process. Minister Knowles has recently announced that the coastal SEPP71 is now being reviewed. On completion it will define the types of development on coastal strip on which the State should be involved. I'm not sure whether you're aware but Planning NSW since the introduction of this SEPP has had to look at some 700 development applications some of them were for BBQs, pergolas, dividing fences, or major tourist based developments.

Why Planning NSW would want to look at a beautiful pergola is beyond me and probably beyond you. Of the 700 that Planning NSW saw, only 3 were significant enough to warrant further investigation by the Department and clearly it's a SEPP which doesn't work very well with defining the parameters in which it wants to be involved with.

We also want to allow Councils to carry out their jobs with greater certainty and assure that the Department focusses on the strategic policy end of the picture not the minute.

Professional associations such as yours are expected by their members to be at the forefront of change for the benefit of the members and especially for the benefit of industry, that is your challenge. Government is also expected to be at the forefront of change for the benefit of members, the people of NSW the individuals, the communities, businesses and industry and that's my government's challenge. We can provide excellent outcomes for all concerned if we work together to meet the challenges the changes and the opportunities. Therefore I welcome your involvement in the new integrated approach for land use and transport planning to achieve greater certainty for the future. Thank you.

APPLAUSE.

MICHAEL PARKINSON

Thank you Minister Beamer. On behalf of the Cumberland Group I'd like to present you with these two books as a token of our appreciation for opening our Seminar. One is the Military Map Makers book and the other is on Major Mitchell.

APPLAUSE

I'd now like to introduce Bob Harrison, the President of the Institution of Surveyors, NSW, could everyone give Bob a warm welcome.

APPLAUSE

BOB HARRISON

Honourable member, Chairman Michael, all the speakers and of course fellow surveyors you will appreciate that a lot of planning has gone in today and I often think about these sorts of events and whilst we have planning on a major scale in the State government, we've also got a need for a formula in planning this sort of an event to make it a success. When you look out from this end, I can see approximately a third of the membership of the institutions sitting here today or you can translate that into about half of the Registered Surveyors in NSW. It's an amazing feat that you've managed to attract them with this event Michael and the committee.

About 3 weeks ago I was invited to a cocktail party with the Australian Property Institute which is the old Planning Group, the valuers and land economists. I went along to represent the Institution and I thought to myself this'll be another nice quiet evening, few drinks, talk to a few people and when I arrived and there was very few there I thought I'd been right in my prediction. The event didn't start for about an extra half hour after the allotted time and I wondered why then a door opened and out poured several hundred valuers and I thought this is unusual, what's held them up. Oh they've just had their AGM how do you get several hundred valuers to an AGM from all around Australia mind you. First of all they had a bit of a controversial issue the Royal Institute of Chartered surveyors was trying to take them over. I thought gee there is a bit of déjà vu isn't it [LAUGHTER] they had another one too the Professional Insurance issue, Professional Indemnity insurance and having the Minister here today I hope that she takes back to her colleagues our thoughts that there needs to be something drastically done about the insurance that we are offered as professionals so that we don't have our houses on the line as we presently do when something goes wrong.

Lastly the formula for the valuers was free drinks at the end and I thought hello this is the Cumberland Group meeting [LAUGHTER]. So I've worked out now that Michael has got the formula correct, he's obviously attracted you people we'd have to say thank you to you all for your attendance in making it a success, thank you for your thirst for knowledge, and we hope that Michael manages to slake it at the end of the day. We thank the Minister for her words of encouragement and the challenge that she offers us to gain knowledge today to solve the problems of the future.

Thank you Minister, thank you Michael.

APPLAUSE

Changes to the Coastal Protection Act
Professor Bruce Thom, Coastal Council of NSW

MICHAEL PARKINSON

Our first speaker is Professor Bruce Thom from the Coastal Council of NSW. Professor Thom will be speaking to us today on changes to the Coastal Protection Act particularly changes to the doctrine of accretion and erosion. Could everyone please give Professor Thom a warm welcome.

APPLAUSE

PROFESSOR BRUCE THOM

Minister, ladies and gentlemen, this is the second time I've had the privilege of speaking to this group and I know that many of you will probably be familiar with some of the points that I will be speaking about today but I will be adding material that has taken place over the past year or so partly alluded to by the Minister with respect to the changes that are taking place as we look for a way forward in managing and planning in Coastal NSW because as she alluded to the Coast is under enormous pressure and will continue to be. NSW is extraordinarily privileged because from border to border we have probably one of the greatest and most attractive coasts in the world and those pressures are from border to border we're the only State in Australia that experiences such pressures.

I've just returned earlier this week from Europe attending a conference in Sweden on rights and responsibilities in managing the coastal zone and I was struck by the history, how history dominates the thinking and impedes progress how it impedes the way in which the Coast can be planned for the benefit of future generations. We too have a history that does make it difficult, a lot of that history is entrenched in past practices, a lot of that history is related to actions that have taken place in more recent years so today in this talk I want to draw on a bit of background, bit of context and then move into the area of reform that has taken place with respect to amendments to the Coastal Protection Act and also to SEPP71 which has been referred to by the Minister.

The issues of Coastal zones reform are worldwide. These issues relate to a number of factors which are impacting on the Coast. The first one there is global change, the changes that are taking place as a result of the climate being changed as a result of human activities is something that scientists are grappling with and trying to introduce those understands of those changes into policy. We are trying to do that in NSW the appreciation of sea level change, the appreciation of changes in storm patterns, droughts and so on needs to be built into our policy thinking as we think forward. Secondly the introduction of ecologically sustainable development principles. Australia law both at Federal level and State level has introduced these principles, the principles of inter generational equity, the precautionary principles, the protection of bio diversity, these are now enshrined in a number of State and Federal law and it means with that we have to think forward in the way in which we apply our management and planning practices and that's difficult because a lot of current practice and historical practice is based on past decision and based on the benefits for the present generation, not on future generations, but our law both Federal and State now makes us think about how to look after the interests of future generations and the amendments to the Coastal Protection Act which I'll talk about in a moment link back to that particular point.

The concept of integrated coastal zone management is important because as the Minister said there are so many factors involved in decision making, so many layers and often with different agencies and Councils with all sorts of different responsibilities. How to integrate that, how to streamline it in such a way that we are able to make decisions in a more effective and efficient way without going through all the rigmarole that has been built on layer by layer over time through the statutory and regulation process. And finally there is the impact of community, community pressures, community participation particularly since the mid 70s has had an enormous consequences to the way in which we manage our natural resources and our built form because communities have a participatory process now that they engage in.

Only yesterday the Minister made a decision to buy land in northern NSW where the community for years have been pressuring the government to buy this land even to the point of 60 of them being charged by the Police, barrage balloons being put up to stop helicopters from landing so that the developers could actually have access to their site an enormously conflicting situation that arose in northern NSW resolved yesterday by the Minister purchasing this land so that this land is now in the public domain. Public intervention of that nature can have an enormous impact but can also create all sorts of problems as you're aware in terms of conflicts at the community level.

So those four factors are really basic to the thinking that has gone on in recent years in NSW. The factors of ecologically sustainable development as you can see there, conservation of biological diversity, preservation of resources for the benefit of future generations, polluter payers and dealing cautiously with risk and just because the doctrine of accretion on beaches and along our foreshores is so relevant to the position of where sea level is, just the one point that relates back to global change, sea level is changing, it changes at different scales, not only with the rhythm of the tides but also with the rhythm of El Nino, the rhythm of what we now know as the Pacific decadal oscillation and you can see the Pacific decadal oscillation in this curve from the Sydney tide record. Over this period of time you can see the jumps, 10 cms of the Fort Denison tide gauge, 20 cms at the Newcastle tide gauge, involved in changes associated with the decadal oscillation, a phenomena that we're still grappling with to try and understand the science.

The issue of population growth, the sea change that the Minister referred to is another factor that we're concerned with because more and more development will take place on the coast, it's taking place because people want to live on the coast but also recreational needs on the coast. Byron Bay for example has a factor of ten times the number of tourists to the number of residents who are in that particular locality at any particularly time particularly during holidays.

The 1997 coastal policy which is basic to the processes of decision making that we're involved in at the moment on the coast, highlights the protection of the coast and conservation for future generations, the means to develop and provide for rapid population growth to involve the coastal council in this process as a body which provides professional and independent advice and has been engaged in by several governments now I've been very fortunate to be involved with the Coastal Council since 1989 and to require the Coastal Council to monitor how things happen and provide advice to government accordingly and particularly through the Parliamentary process.

Two years ago the Premier announced the Coastal Protection Package and in announcing the Coastal Protection Package a number of measures were instigated as a result of that decision, one of which was the introduction of a process known as the Comprehensive Coastal Assessment, the others include the SEPP and I'll say more about that in a moment. The ones that particularly relate to the interest of you are the amendments to the Coastal Protection Act. Now both the SEPP and the Coastal Protection Act are to complement each other. As the Minister indicated the SEPP in some ways went too far in what it tried to capture and the current review will bring that back to those issues that are of a strategic nature that are significant to the management of the coast and there are those issues built into that which relate to where Councils may do things which are at odds with the strategic interests of the State and time and time again we have examples of where Council behaviour is at odds with what we see as being important in the protection of the States longer term interest for example the protection of our beaches, we have not until a year ago had any statutory control for the management of our beaches. We've had statutory controls for our wetlands and our literal rain forest but not for our beaches. And our beaches of course are so important to us not only from the point of view of our own personal love and use of the coast, but also from the point of view of the economy of local areas and from a broader tourist perspective.

So the SEPP has been designed to in this review process to capture matters which are of strategic importance to the coast to make sure that local Councils understand that and in their decision making process they reflect the State's broader strategic interests.

The Coastal Protection Act similarly was amended to bring into line the interests of the State with those particular matters associated with the dynamic changes that take place on the Coast. An important thing to recognise here is that our beaches are highly dynamic. Our foreshores and beaches around our open ocean and the front of our estuaries are highly dynamic, they change with respect to their position over a hundred or so metres during storms, they're capable of being lowered by several metres in terms of vertical elevation. I've been involved in measuring beaches since 1972 regularly along the NSW coast and I've got a good familiarisation with the lateral and vertical shifts in beach position with respect to the cycles of storms that we experience and of course we have over time and here is where we come back to some of our history, we have over time allowed properties to be developed on places that are highly vulnerable to those shifts in the position of the beach as a result of storms, highly vulnerable.

As the result of old sub divisions some of which go back to the latter part of the 19th century we've allowed for properties to be located on sites where there may have been a one chain buffer at some stage but with the recession of the shoreline that has gone and as a result the properties are now located right on the edge and in some cases they have been removed as the result of wave actions.

What do people do who have properties in such vulnerable positions. Well the most hideous example of what people do is go to the local car yard and find car bodies and dump them on their property or on the Crown property on the beach it doesn't matter, because they are wanting to protect their property. And it's a natural reaction to want to protect your property from erosion. The sea is a very very powerful agent and so at the height of a storm you go to a car yard and you dump car bodies on the beach and unfortunately those Councils in which that's happened have not had the foresight to see what's going to happen later on and those car bodies are still around so some 25 years later after those car bodies were dumped on the beach at Byron Bay, you can still find those car bodies, and people are getting injured cutting themselves and so on.

Now in this particular case the property boundaries have been defined by a right line and the right line position now locates these properties out on the beach so the property owners feel quite naturally that they have a right to protect that boundary and not only do the sorts of things you see in that particular image, but in this one as well put up stakes, put up tyres, throw in rocks, do whatever they can to protect that right line boundary.

Now the changes to the Coastal Protection Act reflect not only boundary change associated with the ambulatory high water mark boundary but also with the right line boundary, because the concern is that individual property protection can potentially damage not only the beach amenity at that location, but also the location along the beach itself because the beach is a system. The sand transport moves not only on and offshore but along shore so changes you attempt to put a rock wall in front of your property you can potentially damage properties in what we call the downdrift direction.

So treating the beach as a system, planning for the beach change as a system has now been reintroduced formally, it was informally in the old Coastline Management Manual, now it's introduced in a statutory sense into the Coastal Protection Act and it opens up this question of not just what behaviour has happened in the past, so that the Courts of course have had the opportunity to rule on this, and in most cases they've ruled for the benefit of the property owner, not for the benefit of the beach, changes to the Coastal Protection Act means now that the Courts will have to address the impact of such actions on the beach, on the beach environment and the beach amenity, those are the two words that are introduced into the Act.

So for the first time in Australian law we actually have a recognition that the beach has rights. In California, this debate about whether the beach has rights has been going on for some time and it's finally getting entrenched into Californian law but it's important to recognise that by giving the beach rights, it's a right that not only we have to use the beach for surfing and for walking and so on, but also it protects it's values into the future for future generations.

Now the issue then comes to what happens when the property boundary is ambulatory. So we have another situation where the high water mark is the defining line for the property knowing that high water mark boundary is capable of moving. We estimate there are about 50,000 such titles boundaries in NSW. A lot of them relate to rocky shore lines a lot of them relate to sandy shore lines. Here is an example of a location in Pittwater, Palm Beach is on the far bottom corner there, and in Pittwater round through Sand Point into Snapperman's Beach.

Now we have a very dynamic feature here, this is what we call technically in geomorphological terms a moving cuspate foreland, the foreland is defined here by this shape and it's moving south wards within Pittwater, that's the long term process of change. But what's happened is that we have had sub-divisions defined by high water mark along this particular stretch of shoreline and in doing so, we've allowed property owners to define their boundary particularly on this northern side of Sand Point, and with erosion continual natural processes of moving that shoreline we're moving it further towards the south here and allowing the accretion to take place in that particular area.

Now the consequence of that on this side is for people to wall off their property to protect that shoreline and with high tide you get now no beach this photograph was taken at low tide, high tide is right up against the wall and right at the point there even at low tide, there is no beach so public access is denied.

Before the 1999 election there were massive protests here and across Broken Bay at a place called Booker Bay which led to an enquiry and it was that enquiry which was instigated by the Premier and the then Minister for Land and Water Conservation, that enquiry led to a review of the property situation which gives us the position of where we are with respect to defining high water mark positions.

Now the work that we did through the extensive consulting we had advertised and a lot of people reported including surveyors, lawyers and so on, one view was that the difficulties we have with defining this fluctuating high water mark on a very dynamic beach foreshore situation that we have along our ocean beaches and along our beaches just inside the entrance to estuaries, the best way to do that was to abolish the ambulatory title altogether and have right line title. The cost of doing that not only in terms of the surveying work although you guys would probably have made a tremendous amount of money out of doing all that, the cost of doing that particularly in terms of potential compensation was deemed to be enormous so what we decided to do was to take an approach through the amendments to the Coastal Protection Act which reflects if you like the forward thinking about what's going to happen to our beaches over time given the rising sea level, given the fluctuations in tidal levels, associated with El Nino and Pacifical Decadal Oscillations, given storminess episodes and so on, lets look at the way in which we can still give the property owners entitlements to use the land so their title position remains but question whether or not there should be any permanency in defining that position unless the property owner can do one of two things. One is to show that that accretion that has taken place will be indefinitely sustained and two is to how that particular piece of property fits within the context of the beach system in which that property is located, and hence the need for a Coastal Management Plan for that particular beach section and that was written into the Act as well.

So the decision was taken and the Parliament agreed last year to amend the Coastal Protection Act Section 4B so that a Court or a Minister would have to make a declaration in relationship to increasing the area of land to the landward side of a boundary only if a perceived trend by way of accretion is likely to be indefinitely sustained by natural means, and as a consequence of making such a declaration, public access to the beach, headland or waterway, particularly a beach will be available.

So there are two components. There is the question of sustaining through time a perceived trend, and then the provision of public access because with the coastal policy the issue of the provision of public access to the foreshore is a very important and very strategic element of the State's interest. So the question is whether or not we can find situations where indefinite sustainability of accretion can take place. And the answer is yes. There are a number of geomorphological situations where accretion will occur and particularly where sediment loading in to an area of an embayment of the area of an estuary can take place and there are several places in NSW where that's happening right now.

So the concept of indefinite sustainability is not a myth. You can actually demonstrate through the sedimentological processes that it can take place but there are a lot of other places where that is not the case, such as what I showed you there at Sand Point. So it's going to be when surveying is to take place, the surveyors responsible will have to involve those who have an understanding of the geomorphological processes but more than that the Council involved should be in a position to take on board a Coastal Management Plan for that area so that property owner knows where he or she fits in relationship to the dynamics of that particular environment and that's the forward thinking way we're trying to reconcile the interests of the property owner with the interests of the community and future generations.

Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

Update on the NSW Planning & Building System

Peter Zadeian, Director - Policy & Reform - Dept of Infrastructure, Planning & Natural Resources

PETER ZADEIAN

MICHAEL PARKINSON

Our next speaker is Peter Zadeian, the Director for Policy and Reform for the NSW Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources. With a planning background Peter has particular interest in corporate governance, urban design, infrastructure planning, environmental law and management systems. Peter has 15 years experience made up of local government and private consultancy, providing advice to developers, objectors, steering committees, estate agencies and politicians. Peter has been involved in award winning policies, landmark court cases and high profile projects such as the Maroota Mining Precinct, North West Sector release area, Parramatta City centre and Green Square. Peter will outline the current reform and future sign posts of the NSW Planning and building system under the new superministry of the Department of Infrastructure Planning and Natural Resources. Specifically Peter will outline some recent achievements and current projects including certifications and building quality reforms, the National Development Assessment Forum DAF initiatives and State planning policies. Would everybody join with me in giving Peter a warm welcome.

APPLAUSE

PETER ZADEIAN

Ladies and gentlemen it's my pleasure to provide you with an update on the NSW planning and building system. You know Richard Nixon once said that failing to plan is planning to fail so it's my pleasure to advise you on how the NSW government is planning to plan.

I might start quickly giving you an overview of the actual system itself. There are a number of components in terms of the legislative framework and they're driven by in effect the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act which has various components to it not the least of which being the Strategic Planning Component what I call the Development Assessment or Approvals and the Building Control and Enforcement. There are a number of other related Acts which I'm sure you're all aware of including the Roads Act, Heritage Act, Local Government Act, and Protection of Environment there is also the BCA which is a critical part of the building component of the system, and there is a suite of other related policies, guidelines, practice notes etc taking on the enterprise of reforming the Planning and Building system for me was not an easy decision after 15 years of being a vocal critic so I can understand some of the perceptions of the system and I've put them up for you to have a look and they're really my perceptions. That is it's slow, old, complex, only local government seems to really understand how it all fits together and works together and the big end of town always gets their way. Similarly the perception is the planning system is only land use planning, but in fact it does have a quite significant component being the building system.

So how do we deal with all those perceptions and how do we go about reforming the system. Well we need to set up some objectives and desired outcomes. First of all the system needs to be robust, flexible, dynamic. We need to strive for a sustainable future, we need efficient services, we need quality buildings, green environment, economic development and jobs and vibrant liveable communities. We can only achieve those reforms if we recognise that we all are agents of the planning and building system, it is not just one agency it is not just one part of the private sector, it is in fact everyone.

So how am I proceeding with the reform process. The department is focussing on a number of elements and those are listed for you. For me the main focus is the customer interface. The other is regulatory maze streamlining that maze as the Minister indicated, too complex and it's not meant to be a traumatic process, it needs to be a dynamic interactive process that's timely and ends in quality outcomes.

The other focus of course is sustainability, we all recognise the benefits of sustainability. Within that precaution, being proactive, inclusive and having a managed growth principle for me are vital elements of sustainability.

Another component which doesn't seem to be given too much recognition is corporate governance for all that participate in the system. That is essential to ensure that the system remains honest, open and transparent. All of those focal points will lead to a world class planning building system.

So what are the targets within those focal points. As the Minister indicated, integration, not only at cabinet level but also departmental level. Electronic delivery, we need to have a look at reforming the strategic planning component, the development assessment, building quality, and BCA reforms. That's all part of the ongoing continuous improvement of the system. The themes that we've identified within that commitment, integration, partnerships, collaboration, simplification of an already complex system and as I've indicated an interactive customer interface. So we really need to see how we can review implementing the reforms of the system faster than we've previously foreshadowed and that is an extremely difficult task.

In relation to partnerships and collaboration it's clear to me that regulation on it's own simply does not work so it's critical that the system is flexible enough to promote and encourage partnerships. This must start first with integrated government agencies, we must build alliances and networks across the entire spectrum of private public sector including local government, industry and community groups, institutions and professional associations such as the Cumberland Group. We also need to pursue funding programs and ensure that those funding programs are targeted. The local plan funding program is being developed now and is an outcome of the Plan First regime. Also communication and marketing the Department has recently published it's community engagement handbook which is being praised widely and I encourage you to have a look at that if you have time particularly if you're dealing with development applications and or the construction process.

So sustainability for me is probably the most misused term I've ever come across. In relation to how the Department would view sustainability it really is about using the State's resources efficiently. We can only achieve that by working together to ensure the principles of VSD are implemented. We have sound financial solutions, public services are efficient and effective, the social objectives of a community are met, local communities must be prosperous in order to achieve sustainability and as the Minister also indicated, infrastructure, planning and financing must occur ahead of development not many years after. So really it's about a dynamic framework in which we all participate to achieve those sorts of outcomes.

Integration again the Minister talked about the Cabinet integration and I'll get to that in a few moments but integration of course is a three dimensional thing not two dimensional so in relation to how the Department sees integration it's across government agencies, across all tiers of government, it's across disciplines. The days of planning purely being about land use I think are long gone and it really is about coordinating the various disciplines that are involved in development and building the State and of course across all sectors. The challenge of course is working together as if there are no administrative boundaries and that in itself is a challenge.

The Minister touched on Cabinet integration and I won't bore you by reading everything on that screen, but essentially you can see the number of ministers that now have some role to play in the planning world and this is what planning has been talking about for the last 20 years and it's great to see a government who is standing up and actually doing something about it so I'm very pleased that the government has made an effort to integrate.

In relation to the department itself and the new Super Ministry that is the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources, that is headed up by Jennifer Westacott as the Director General. Underneath here are two deputy Director Generals and that is Andrew Cappey Wood who will look after transport, infrastructure and planning and Acting Deputy Director General is Chris Guess and that is the Department of Sustainable Natural Resources.

So what does that really mean in relation to what previously existed. As the Minister indicated it's pretty much most of the Planning NSW it's the Transport Planning arm from the Department of Transport, it's the Infrastructure Coordination Unit from Premier's Department, it's most of the Department of Land and Water Conservation, Healthy Rivers Commission from the EPA.

Other agencies which have a role to play in relation to planning are the National Parks & Wildlife Service in relation to threatened species and NSW Fisheries in relation to aquatic threatened species so there is no real change in relation to those.

So what are the benefits of integration. Well there is a number there is a synergy of people working together where previously they would have worked in silos. There is better coordination and financing. The integration of disciplines is a lot more seamless. Planning infrastructure and service needs can now be better planned to meet community needs. For me that all means that the planning and building system will now be demystified.

So what have been some of the recent achievements and current projects that we're working towards in relation to the reform of this system. There are quite a number and I'll try not to bore you with all of them. In relation to the customer interface we really are focussing on access and participation. I Plan already exists, there are already 30 LEPs on that. Industry and commercial land viewable for the greater metropolitan area region that's already on line, EDAs something that a number of Councils have already implemented, and something that the Department will be promoting and encouraging. E Planning and Best Practice particularly in relation to customer services, partnerships, road shows and regular engagements with the communities and the private sector. In relation to electronic delivery, through I Plan tools are already up and running and we're working closely with Councils to develop a system architecture for electronic LEPs and I'll let my brother in arms Tony Hart give you a greater background on detail into that.

The reform of the strategic component of the system is up and running and it really represents the first phase of Plan First and it starts with the State Planning policies. There are currently over 90 SEPs and Ministerial Directions some of which deal with local issues and or regional issues so as the Minister indicated it's not really what State planning policies were intended to do and it was really to provide broad strategic principles and directions.

So the department is now full steam ahead on creating one State policy. That includes reviewing the current suite of SEPs that are already on the books, we will add new policy components that aren't there that should be there we'll be adding sustainability indicators to ensure that the SEP is monitored and that it is also continually improved. We are looking to exhibit the first instalment of the new SEP by the end of the year and I welcome the Group's input into that.

You've also probably heard the Minister is reviewing Plan First that task force headed up by Gabriel Kibbell and I expect that will take another 2-3 months tops. In relation to the sustainability indicators, that is really a major shift from current SEPPs and it really is to measure the on ground social and economic outcomes and environmental of course, it's a more rigorous and systematic process and it really is the Department's commitment in terms of thinking global and acting local.

In relation to local plans, the vision is that the local plan will not e the same as the current LEPs which are essentially development control tool. It will be a more visionary document and it will look to deliver a number of outcomes. It will provide an overview and direction of local developments bearing in mind regional, State and global perspective, it will set out controls policies and actions that need to be achieved. It will review those outcomes by a number of indicators and annual reporting. It will set the context for development and it will also address the needs and aspirations of the community.

To do this there are a number of things that are required not least of which being the early and ongoing involvement of communities, their residents and their community groups and industry. We will also need structural and cultural alignment for consent authorities and for those who participate in the planning and development business. It will also require State funding to assist in the strategic planning for those local plans and I've already foreshadowed that the development of a local plan fund is under way.

Moving on to development assessment, the Minister indicated the need to streamline the DA process and we certainly have that in our sights. Some of the current projects tied into that are the National Development Assessment Forum Initiatives, reviewing of the DA fees, responding to ICAC's taking the devil out of development, and looking at some best practice models including NSW university guidelines, Community Engagement Handbook, developing partnerships with ICAC, Department of Local Government and the LGMA and taking on board feedback from a range of groups including this one.

Some of those development assessment forum initiatives include good strategic planning guide, harmonisation of definitions, we all know the problem for instance with floor space ratio definitions, we are working closely with DAF and some reference groups to make sure that we can resolve that, benchmarking and monitoring is in progress and a DA assessment model is being finalised.

In relation to taking the devil out of development, we certainly are working hard to reduce the complexity of local plans, SEPP 1 is being finalised and I hope to provide further update in the next quarter about what the new parameters and tolerances for flexibilities will be, community engagement and independent hearing and assessment panels. These are all projects the Department is looking into.

Some of the other projects are the caravan park regulations and the government working party, telecommunication guidelines, exempt and complying development and major development reviews.

Moving on to the building system. Campbell enquiry and Cabinet itself handed down some significant changes to the building system and that was to set up and office of home building and setting up a Building Professionals Board, which will provide a level playing field for all accredited certifiers. In the next few months the Department will be advising the outcome of the Building Legislation Amendment Act which looks at the role and responsibilities of PCAs it will set out mandatory inspections with construction, and it will also provide guides to tolerances and standards. It also will indicate the manner in which the accreditation will extend to all building practitioners. The Customer Advisory Centre is already being set up by the Office of Fair Trading and the Building Coordination Committee is already up and running.

In relation to accreditation, it is an issue for the Department and indeed for the building component of the system. Last year the Minister withdrew one of the four schemes that are up and running and that was the BSAP scheme and that is now being driven solely by the Department without additional resources I might add and is taking a lot of the time of Department officers. The State Assessment Committee has made a significant change in lifting the bar of accredited certifiers skills and competencies. It is also providing technical advice back into the Department in relation to BCA reforms and Part IV reforms. Over the last 12 months it has seen roughly 140 applications for accreditations and reaccreditations, 23 of which have been downgraded so that's a significant change. The Complaints Review Committee has investigated 73 complaints and of those 2 matters are currently before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The Building Practitioners Board is expected to commence around mid next year and the Department is again working hard with stakeholders to resolve the structure and operational management of that Board. If there is one message I'd like for you to take today, that is that the BCA is solely responsible for ensuring consistency with the development approval, conditions of consent that is the Act itself and indeed BCA.

In relation to the Building Legislative Amendment Act which has really now come of the Campbell Enquiry, that has been delayed so that the Department can further appraise the issue of capacity in relation to the mandatory inspection regime both in terms of whether or not the private sector can deal with the additional workload and indeed whether or not local government itself can also deal with the additional workload of mandatory inspections.

There will be workshops overt the next quarter that will further explain how that is to be implemented and the statue law changes will follow from there. The Home Building Act amendments which are driven by the Department of Commerce have also been rescheduled for 1 September and that introduces financial soundness, testing and consumer advocacy services.

Insurance is also another big issue particularly for the private sector and it's not something that's really driven by the building system as such but rather as a global issue. The 10 year run off cover requirement was removed last year, PI insurance at the moment is difficult and also expensive and that's simply because most certifiers are dealing with buildings or projects of disproportionately high value compared to their own incomes but we are working with a number of stakeholders to try and resolve that issue and one of those mechanisms has been an inter departmental working group and that's looking at the full impact of the market it's looking at claims data, we're meeting with the insurance industry, we're meeting with the building industry as well to try and instill confidence in the checks and balances that already exist in the planning building system.

For me the greatest opportunity really does lie with the building industry to instill that confidence in the insurance industry.

Some of the other projects that relate to the building system include the Joint High Rise Inspection Task Force and a report is being finalised on that. A Guide to Standards and Tolerances that should be published by the end of the year and the Strata Issues Discussion Paper is also being finalised and being distributed.

Basics, another very important tool that the Department is working on, tied into sustainability and energy efficiency is the first integrated tool of it's kind. It unpacks sustainability particularly as it relates to residential planning and building. It's a comprehensive web based tool to assist us all in demystifying the notion of sustainability performance of buildings.

Some of the BCA improvements that the Department has been directly involved in over the past couple of years include acoustic rating, requirements for car parking for people with disabilities, new standards for glazing, a new class of building for aged care facilities, Braille and tactile. They're some of the other projects we're working on as well, energy efficiency, equitable access, rising salt damp, sound insulation and future building code and sustainability.

So as you can see there are a number of changes and projects currently being dealt with in terms of reforming the planning and building system as one profession that deals with the go to whoa if you like of building and planning profession, I encourage the Cumberland Group to participate in the ongoing reform and I'm happy to speak to individuals and or reference groups on an ongoing basis. Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

Update on the iPlan Project

Tony Hart, Director, Planning Information Development, Dept of Infrastructure, Planning & Natural Resources

Update on the iPlan Project
TONY HART

MICHAEL PARKINSON

Tony Hart is the Director of Planning Information and Development at the new Dept of Infrastructure, Planning & Natural Resources. Previously Tony was Land Information Systems Consultant and was involved with GI software and data development for ten years. Tony is also Director of the State Planning Information Council from 1986 to 1992 and is a Geographer and Economist by training.

Tony is going to give us an update on the I Plan project, Peter has already referred to the fact that there is already 30 LEPs on the net and I can commend the Industry Lands Online part of that web site too, it's excellent. I'd like you all to give Tony a very warm welcome.

APPLAUSE

TONY HART

Good morning everyone. I think Peter has taken a lot of my thunder thank goodness, because I've got too many slides and we've repeated a few slides so there may be a bit of speed reading as we try and fit things in before morning tea.

I'm also pleased too that Peter touched upon an issue that's very dear to me and very dear to the Department. That is that IPlan is a lot more than just a delivery vehicle for information for the general public. IPlan is in fact one of the leading components of planning reform in the Department. So in addition to delivering better customer access and simpler information, the functions of IPlan include things such as delivering better technology to support the plan making process.

When I came into the department 18 months ago now bit less than that, I was quite surprised at the lack of integration of data services in the Department. Planners in various parts of the Department were gathering data from all sorts of different places, there was even duplication in purchasing data. There was really only rudimentary GIS services being used by planners, and a lot of the technology was not really in the hands of the people who needed it, it was fairly centralised to be frank. So IPlan is not only about delivering data to the public, it is about providing a new underpinning for modern planning. However the public face of this tends to be what you see on the web.

Now I last spoke to you 12 months ago and I sort of introduced IPlan I think and at that stage it was a bit of a concept in many people's heads and we made some fairly clear commitments last year to actually getting IPlan delivered so what I'd like to do is spend a bit of time talking about what IPlan is and expand a little bit on my introductory remarks. Also talk about the achievements of the last 12 months and then give you some vision of how IPlan is moving forward.

So I'm going to do something I don't actually like doing I'm going to put up a definition. The key words in this definition are all in colour it's about delivery. You often see and when I first arrived the definition was all about concepts and frameworks. I said to the guys what's it delivering and we've changed our focus in the last 12 months very much to about delivery rather than concepts and frameworks and I think you see some of the evidence of that delivery on the website now.

The other important word is integrated and you've heard that a number of times from the Minister, Peter and you'll probably hear it from Evan Jones later on this afternoon and the key to that is about integrating the planning process so that natural resource data and land use data and socio economic data is available together. At the moment IPlan concentrates very much on what I'd call base planning information but it is linked with the cannery site so you can pull in in real time natural resource data, you can't actually do too much with it at the moment, you can view it but the plan is into the future to enable a real time interactivity of natural resource information, socio-economic information and land use information.

The other important thing about IPlan is that it's location focussed. Again I was a bit surprised at the lack of a spatial component in planning. At the local Government level planning seems to stop at the local Government boundaries it's amazing how often you see a map of land use and it stops at the boundary and you think what's over the other side of that boundary. Is it compatible land use, have the planners and the two local authorities been talking to each other, often you find they haven't been.

So IPlan very specifically delivers a location focus to the plan making process and to the delivery of information. One of the reasons for doing that is to deliver a flexibility as well. One of the issues that's currently being discussed and will be considered very much in the Plan First Review which Peter referred to which is being done by Gabriel Kibbell, is what's the appropriate geographic unit for regional planning. Is it a grouping of LGAs, is it catchment areas or is it something else. What we've got to have are systems where it doesn't matter what regional area you choose so the data has got to be flexible it's got to be in systems that allow you to mix and match in a way so all the way through IPlan we're trying to build in this flexibility of the location focus.

I gave a similar presentation to this one last week at an AURISA conference I think it's not called AURISA anymore I think it's called the Social Sciences Consortium or something like that, anyway Barry Dowse from Land and Property Information had given a paper earlier on and he'd put up the new structure of Government like Peter had put up but he'd made it clear that Lands was within my new Department, Dept Infrastructure Planning and Natural Resources and he referred to Dept as the mother ship. Now on this slide I'm trying to describe what IPlan is and how it fits in with all the other initiatives and the thing across the top I've realised is the IPlan mother ship and when I build the little spatial data infrastructure engine into that thing it will look even more like a flying saucer.

But essentially what IPlan does is deliver a whole range of services on the right hand side, information about planning instruments, regional planning contacts, access directly to local Council planning websites and there is a demonstration of DA lodgement which I'll touch on in a few minutes.

It also delivers tools to help the planning process and at the moment on line we've got the Community Engagement Handbook which Peter referred to and which has received great accolades, not anything to do with IPlan but in terms of the design of the handbook itself and we've also just loaded a collaboration tool which was originally designed to help regional forums communicate among themselves and with each other but will become a very important means of communication with organisations like yourselves.

We also deliver information through IPlan and the two key things about that is that we link into existing websites such as Cannery, the Land Titles Office website, we're working with them at the moment to have an on line link and before long there will be an ABS at NSW web site which is being arranged by the government so that all government agencies will be able to access that and some of it will be available through IPlan. We also bring in raw real live data which we store in our geo data base in the Department which has grown considerably in the last 12 months since I last spoke to you.

Our planning processes at the moment are to put the new planning system guides onto IPlan there might be some changes to that now with reviews to Plan First and you will start to see the new State Planning policies coming up and you'll start to see new local plans appearing on IPlan. One of the really stimulating initiatives we've got at the moment down here on the left hand side bottom left hand corner in the brown which is still in the planning stage is the concept of delivering a web based tool for local Governments that will enable them if they wish and this is very important for rural Councils and the smaller councils to actually access a web based spatial tool a GIS tool if you like but it won't be a full scale GIS to draw their local environment plans and even more importantly a service based on the web that as you pick an area you can use a template that allows you or helps you write your local environmental plan which will lead to some greater degree of consistency between local Councils and deliver some of the integration that we're looking for. That's very much in the planning stage it may not happen but we've got a very detailed description of exactly what's required now and I'm talking with Algov which I'm told has just changed it's name again it's gone back to being Local Government Association and the Shire's Association of NSW, we're talking with them about working in with their E Mapping project so that's essentially a sort of pocket picture of where IPlan is.

So what's our scorecard over the last 12 months. We did launch, not quite on schedule, but we went live with IPlan in August, it was actually ready in June as we promised, but the then Minister decided that he wanted to launch it himself and he wasn't available until 15 August so we launched it on 15 August in Grafton, we got a tremendous amount of cooperation from North Coast councils, they all provided their LEP maps and we were able to link all those with the planning instruments for those areas.

We're getting something in the region of 4,000 visits a day on IPlan which I find quite high and our server is finding it extremely high. You will find that the response times are not as good as they ought to be. So in the last 12 months we've improved our technology and I'll show you an example of one element of that in a second. And we've added all those additional services to IPlan so that we've put a number of new things into the IPlan website and increasingly over the last 12 months IPlan has sort of got very much into the planning reform arena. I'm not going to go through that one because we've covered a lot of it, see we didn't do too much integration did we Peter, we've got the same slides here in some cases.

So some of the reforms we're looking at as I mentioned are integration, importantly simplification. IPlan is not there to enable you to pull in 25 documents, it's really there to synthesise the content of 25 documents about a local authority and that's one of the challenges that's facing us and that's why we have to go electronic.

I can remember many years ago describing how the Land Information System would replace all these maps and the descriptions of people dealing with maps that kept rolling up and over laying them and so on, exactly the same situation exists in the planning environment, large numbers of complicated not very clear legal documents. The point of IPlan is to try and simplify that and if I get enough time I will give you an example in a few moments.

So I'm going to cut through a lot of these slides we've already talked about and there is a definite duplicate slide. So on the portal at the moment I've mentioned we've got planning resources, we've got LEP plans, the industrial and commercial data in the region and the metropolitan region. We've also just put up a new site which is I think an example of how IPlan can be used in the future in that it is a public exhibition, normally a public exhibition is in a particular Town Hall or a number of Town Halls and it's hard copy maps sitting up on a wall. This was an electronic exhibition of the draft Northern Rivers Farmland Protection Project so people in the region can zoom into their maps, they can find their property they can see how their property is likely to be affected by the definition of what is prime agricultural land. So we're taking planning into the electronic era here and we've got a demonstration of development applications and the community engagement site I've mentioned.

Okay the initiatives we've got under way I don't want to go through all these but the one I will touch on very much is electronic DA's because I know you're interested in this. When I spoke last year we were talking about improving the capability to lodge DA's regardless of where you are in the State and we've talked to a lot of stakeholders over the last 12 months on this and we came to the conclusion that that's not necessarily where the real benefits lie in improving the development assessment process and we're currently in the middle of a very very detailed consultancy which is looking into where are the real business opportunities for using electronic technology in the development assessment process recognising that Councils have done a lot of work already, recognising that some of the developers have already committed to electronic preparation of plans and the interesting thing that's happening the evidence of the research is that it's not the actual lodgement process where the benefits lie, we need to do some fairly basic things that will improve the development assessment process as a matter of course and one of those basic things that's come up with nearly everyone we've spoken to is getting a consistent cadastre across the State. At the moment there is a whole lot of debate about what is the State's Cadastre. There is the LPI cadastre but if you go out to every local authority you'll find a different version of that Cadastre for a whole load of quite legitimate reasons. And that throws up a whole load of issues for me and IPlan which cadastre do I put in IPlan. So we're finding that cadastral issue and cadastral standards is beginning to be a major issue in impeding the speed of development assessment so it's an area this whole DA's area is one in which you can expect to see some significant development in the next 12 months.

Just a few screen shots, this is what the website now looks like. I think in about a month and a half's time it will look fairly different from this. This is the sort of level of detail we've now got to we've showing the Cadastre at a much more earlier stage as you zoom in and you can pick a parcel of land click on it and it'll pull up the local environmental plan for that area and it'll pick up the written documentation relating to any regional environment plan or SEP that's covered by that parcel of land. As I said we've been playing with technology and we've just I tend to be at the leading edge and this time I got well and truly cut. We've got hold of some really good technology from an Australian company called I Delve in Western Australia and it's literally a zoom with the mouse you just push it forward and the mouse zooms in as fast as this. You don't have to draw little square boxes or anything like that you just push it in and it's brilliant it's like a helicopter zooming in from space and you can go right down as fast as that to an individual parcel of land, we launched it last week after quite a lot of testing about 6 months of testing and once we got it up on our live server it died completely. There was just a tremendous amount of incompatibility between the base IPlan software and our own and there was just one too many links so we've gone back to the previous technology but I hope that within probably 6 weeks or so we'll have this I Delve technology in there.

One of the things I draw to your attention there in that second map in the second zoom in there are LEPs there for about 5 or 6 of the metropolitan
Councils and we're now at the point where you can see multiple LEPs or particular areas of the State and in fact I think we've now got not 30 LEPs we've got 50 LEPs on the system so we're beginning to get some fairly good coverage of the State.

This is the example of when you click on a parcel of land on the cadastre you get the LEP and this is one of the things that's bothering us. You're only getting the LEP for the whole local Government area and the ideal is to be able to get the planning permissions and constraints at an individual parcel level and I can only do that by integrating the data and quite a lot of research so that's one of our challenges for the next 12 months.

Here is an example of where we've pulled in data from the cannery system which shows acid sulphate soils. The problem with that is it comes in as an opaque set of information so you can't see the Cadastre under it and you can't see the land use under it so it's a bit of a problem there technically.

This is an example of the Northern Rivers one where you can just zoom in, see the cadastre and see the type of agricultural land and how that's been defined in that area and you can actually put in your comments on line. You can say gee I don't want my property to have prime agricultural land because I want to sell the land for sub-division.

So we're beginning to get some interactivity between the general public and these electronic systems and that's the community engagement one. I just want to show you one new thing. This is essentially an illustration of what you might expect a new type of local plan to look like. As you know all the Plan First work over the last 12 months probably longer 18 months 2 years, has been looking at how State policies can be reflected in regional planning strategies and then be seen clearly in local plans and that those local plans can be delivered electronically and they can be simple and friendly documents.

What we're working on now is building or designing data bases that should sit behind local plans so that you integrate the various components of local Government operations such as the vision, the outcomes, the indicators of how well a local plan is operating and the actions that are under way and also building in we hope local Government social plans, management plans, and their SOE reports so that we try to get a lot of the information embodied in one plan and the plan is going to be an attractive looking thing, forget all this I just can't move it any faster. I'm going to give you an example of what the plan will look like. The idea is that plans are to be designed about localities within a local authority and this is the sort of thing we'd like to see the plans becoming so you get a map of the local area, this is fairly different from the traditional LEPs isn't it, it's not a legal document it's a sort of personalised statement of what a local plan looks like and it's understandable to the local community so we can and it puts everything together it talks about the vision and the extent the strategies and the background and we'll be able to click on various localities and it goes off and brings you up an interactive map of the locality you're looking at and here it'll tell us what the vision and key actions are, this gives us information about which areas parking might be added and the whole thing becomes a much more usable sort of document and if you want the legal information you can click on there and it tells you the basis of the legal information and if you wish you can go off and you can click on another one and it will bring up the actual legal clause. So we're trying to develop a new style of local plan. This was a mock up admittedly of the sorts of things we would like to be able to do so we're still playing with this idea.

So in summary, IPlan is continuing to grow in the range of information that's available and it's functionality, it's increasingly supporting the planning reforms that are going on in the department, and we're working closely with the planning cluster which is a gathering together of agencies that are involved in planning processes. I think of the 20 odd departments that are in the planning cluster about 50% of them are now all in the new DPNR department so communication is going to be a lot easier and we see IPlan moving towards becoming the delivery vehicle for the new style of plans whether that happens in the next 12 months or the next 5 years we'll see.

I hope that's given you an update of where IPlan is at and thank you very much for listening.

APPLAUSE

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