Environment Minister Geoffrey Boot has insisted his department takes planning enforcement seriously.

The minster was forced to defend his department’s position after admitting that no action had been taken over a sign put up without planning permission - because it had been there so long it had become ’immune from enforcement action due to the passage of time’.

The sign in question, at Gardener’s Lane, was for a housing development at Poyll Dooey in Ramsey. It was erected in 2008/9 and, although a complaint was lodged in 2014, it had ’deemed permission’. The sign was likely to go once the development was completed, said Mr Boot.

Lawrie Hooper (LibVannin, Ramsey) raised the issue to try to highlight a lack of enforcement action more generally.

Mr Boot said: ’We are now taking enforcement very seriously and, indeed, we have moved with our new chairman of planning, [Tim] Baker, to a situation where we are being proactive on the enforcement front and we intend to continue that way into the future.’