The Planning (Electronic Communications) Order (Northern Ireland) 2006

1.—(1) Article 2 (interpretation) shall be amended as follows.

(2) In paragraph (1), after the definition of “EIA development”, there shall be inserted the following definition—

““electronic communication” has the meaning assigned to it by section 4 of the Electronic Communications Act (Northern Ireland) 2001;”.

(3) After paragraph (3) there shall be inserted the following paragraphs—

“(4) In this Order and in relation to the use of electronic communications or electronic storage for any purpose of this Order which is capable of being carried out electronically—

(a) the expression “address” includes any number or address used for the purpose of such communications or storage, except that where this Order imposes any obligation on any person to provide a name and address to any other person, the obligation shall not be fulfilled unless the person on whom it is imposed provides a postal address;

(b) references to applications, forms, maps, plans, drawings, certificates or other documents or to copies of such things include references to such documents or copies of them in electronic form.

(5) Paragraphs (6) to (9) apply where an electronic communication is used by a person for the following purposes—

(a) fulfilling any requirement in this Order to give or send any application, notice or other document to any other person (“the recipient”); or

(b) lodging an application, certificate or other document under Article 11(3) with the Department.

(6) The requirement shall not be taken to be fulfilled, or (as the case may be) the application or other document shall not be taken to have been lodged, unless the document transmitted by the electronic communication is—

(a) capable of being accessed by the recipient;

(b) legible in all material respects; and

(c) sufficiently permanent to be used for subsequent reference.

(7) In paragraph (6), “legible in all material respects” means that the information contained in the notice or document is available to the recipient to no lesser extent than it would be if sent or given by means of a document in printed form.

(8) Where the electronic communication is received by the recipient outside the recipient’s business hours, it shall be taken to have been received on the next working day; and for this purpose “working day” means a day which is not a Saturday, Sunday or a public holiday.

(9) A requirement in this Order that any application, notice or other document should be in writing is fulfilled where the document meets the criteria in paragraph (6), and “written” and cognate expressions are to be construed accordingly.”.