The Cross-Border Spatial Planning and Training Network (CroSPlaN)

This network, organised by the Centre’s sister organisation, the International Centre for Local and Regional Development (ICLRD), brings together an  alliance  (CroSPLaN) of planners, economic development officers, local authority officials, councillors, and community and business interests on both sides of the border to promote more systematic learning and exchange in planning.

CroSPlaN’s  three year (2009-2011) programme consists of the following:

• Two applied research projects per year. The first two completed research projects in 2009-10 – both now on the ICLRD website (www.iclrd.org) – were on the implications of the NI Review of Public Administration’s proposals for local government on inter-jurisdictional planning; and on tri-national planning in the Basel Metropolitan Region in Switzerland, which incorporates neighbouring parts of France and  Germany.
• One executive training programme per year for cross-border region local councillors, council officials and business leaders. The first course, in Dundalk and Newry, ran from November 2009 to May 2010, and the second, in Derry and Letterkenny, ran from October 2010 to May 2011. The third course, in the central border area, will take place in the autumn of 2011.
• One technical workshop per year
• One annual conference

The two 2010-2011 research projects are:

• Cross-border river basin management. Three of the eight EU designated River Basin Districts on the island of Ireland are cross-border. This research project will consist of two separate but inter-linked studies:
  1. International best practices in managing river basins that involve overlapping jurisdictions;
  2. Mapping the policies necessary for the island of Ireland to achieve integrated decision-making in cross-border river basin management, with a particular focus on water quality and the role of spatial planning.



• Local authority shared services. Again this research will consist of separate but inter-linked studies:
  1. Comparative best practice in local authority shared services in Europe and North America;
  2. Shared services in Ireland, with a particular focus on the cross-border region, and on specialist services like ecological, flood risk, strategic environmental and habitats assessment.

The Steering Group for this project brings together planners, planning academics, cross-border cooperation specialists and cross-border local authority network representatives from the Planning Service (NI), the Border Region Authority (RoI), Leitrim County Council, the National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) at NUI Maynooth, University of Ulster, the Irish Central Border Area Network (ICBAN), the Centre for Cross Border Studies and the ICLRD.