The Irish Times

Continuing peace means that Belfast can turn its attention to the quality of its buildings. Now a centre dedicated to promoting better design has just opened. It's difficult to put your hand up in the middle of a war and ask whether anyone's concerned about the poor quality of architecture, but bad design has been a by-product of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Now that the political situation is improving, the state of the environment is being addressed. In most parts of the British Isles, planning comes under the auspices of local authorities and so has input from people who have been elected by locals. That hasn't always been a recipe for success but it does, to some extent, involve the community in the planning process. At the beginning of the 1970s this changed in the North: in Belfast, for instance, the planning process was taken from Belfast City Council and put under the control of the Department of the Environment.