The largest planning research conference in the UK and Ireland will take place at Queen's University Belfast this week with Jonathan Porritt CBE, Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, as the keynote speaker at the event.

With the ten year anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement approaching, Belfast's transformed built-environment will play host to 160 of the world's leading planning experts at the UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference; including delegates from countries as diverse as Brazil, Australia and China.

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Hosted by the School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering at Queen's, the experts will gather from Tuesday to Thursday (18 to 20 March), to discuss all aspects of planning research, but with a special focus on Sustainability, Space and Social Justice.

Study tours of Belfast have been arranged, to include a tour facilitated by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, demonstrating the difficulties of providing social housing in a divided city.

Areas of discussion will include rural planning, the countryside and wildlife; inclusion, diversity and social justice; urban and rural design and the built heritage; planning, accessibility and transportation; governance, policy and spatial planning and urban and rural regeneration.

Mr Porritt was awarded an honorary degree from Queen's for distinction in sustainable development in 2006.

(VB/JM)