Current Petitions
Recreation Open Space (Provision and Planning Regulations) (PE771)<br />Planning Procedures<br />(Playing Field Land) (PE813)
Planning System (Recreational Spaces) (PE821)
The next item is current petitions. We took PE824 in conjunction with the other petition on Robert Burns—PE861—so the next petitions that we have to consider, which are linked, are PE771, PE821 and PE813, on playing fields and recreational spaces.
Petition PE771, by Olena Stewart, calls for the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to consider whether there is sufficient guidance for local authorities to safeguard the provision of playing fields and recreational open space and to establish whether additional legislation is required to cover conflicts of interest within local authorities on planning matters in relation to the loss of playing fields.
Petition PE821, by Sheena Stark, calls for the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to ensure that all planning applications for planning consent to change the usage of recreational spaces should be routinely sent to the appropriate minister for consideration.
Petition PE813, by Ronnie McNicol, on behalf of Laighdykes residents group, calls for the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to review existing planning procedures and guidance to ensure that they are sufficient to prevent local authorities from using playing field land for development purposes.
Members have seen the correspondence. Do they have any views on it?
I am extremely disappointed by the response from the Scottish Executive, because I do not think that it addresses the questions that were asked, particularly by the Laighdykes residents. Throughout the entire Executive response there are references to school playing fields. However, the Laighdykes petition is not about school playing fields but about public playing fields. That is the question that the Executive was asked to address. Of course, in the case of Laighdykes, it is North Ayrshire Council that intends to build a school on the public playing fields, so perhaps that is where some of the Executive's confusion has come from. In fact, what would happen there are the amalgamation of two schools and the loss of playing fields at Kilwinning, which would be sold off. Another primary school in Ardrossan would lose part of its playing fields and the public playing fields would be built on, so we would be losing school playing fields and public playing fields.
This may be a duplication of effort, but I have written to the Deputy Minister for Communities to ask whether the Executive would consider in any forthcoming planning bill—and we know that one is coming—a presumption against development on playing fields where the National Playing Fields Association's minimum level has not been reached, as is the case in Saltcoats and Ardrossan. I hope that it is just confusion on the part of the Executive that explains why it continually refers to school playing fields, but I think that it has missed the point. The committee should go back to the Executive and ask it to address the point about the loss of public playing fields, particularly where the National Playing Fields Association's minimum level has not been reached.
I also have concerns about the position of sportscotland, in that the Executive refers to ministers calling in developments if sportscotland continues to object. However, as we have seen elsewhere in Scotland, sportscotland is sometimes persuaded by developers and local authorities that say that they will provide new sports pitches and facilities, when those are not the same as public-access playing fields—people are charged to use the new facilities, which are sometimes three or four miles down the road. I have concerns that, if sportscotland was persuaded at that point and withdrew its objection, a development could go through without ministers calling it in. That would be a huge retrograde step.
In its reply, the Executive states that if ministers were
"routinely making decisions on certain types of applications",
that
"could be seen as undermining local democracy."
That statement is a wee bit ironic, given that local democracy would seem to be undermined when local authorities build on pitches that are owned by the public.
I will listen to members' contributions, but I would like us to go back to the Executive and ask it to address the points that we asked it to address the first time. I am aware that the Executive was late in submitting its response. I hope that it will be more timeous if we ask for a further response.
I know that Mike Watson will want to say something on the issue, as he had a members' business debate on it.
My comments concern the letter from the Executive and PE821. Campbell Martin is quite right about PE813. I have been concerned about the fact that, in Glasgow and other areas, playing fields have either been sold off and not replaced or, although it has been said that they are not being sold off, they have become so overgrown that nobody can use them and they end up being sold off for building. Like Campbell Martin, I am concerned about the Executive's comments on sportscotland.
Petition PE821 relates to Dowanhill lawn tennis club. In its reply, the Executive tells us that the issue is a planning matter for local councils. The Executive is saying that there must be compelling reasons for taking at a higher level a decision on an objection to selling off a piece of land. However, the fact that tennis clubs and bowling clubs that are well used are being sold off is a reason for taking the matter to the Executive.
We need further clarification. Who decides that it is reasonable to take a matter to the Executive? In its reply, the Executive says that a decision can go to a higher level—that is, the Executive—if a certain kind of interest is involved, but it does not say whether that applies regardless of whether it is the council or the private club that wants to sell off the land. We need clarification.
That is a good question.
As Sandra White mentioned, I had a members' business debate on the general subject last week. The debate was lively and Campbell Martin and others raised the issue of Laighdykes. It is interesting that, on notification of applications, the Executive's response states:
"Notification in such circumstances is required when the development is contrary to the local plan for the area or has attracted a substantial body of objection."
My understanding is that the Laighdykes decision attracted a substantial body of objection. What I am not clear about is whether sportscotland has objected. Can Campbell Martin say whether it has, because, if it has, the issue would go to the minister anyway?
That would be the case as long as sportscotland maintained its objection.
Is that not the current position?
Perhaps I can help. The proposal for the old racecourse in Ayr attracted about 1,350 objections. An objection was received from sportscotland, but sportscotland apparently withdrew its objection after being assured that the footprint of the development would be less than 15 per cent of the area concerned. Nonetheless, the local planning committee threw out the proposal because it obviously contravened so many of the local planning guidelines to which Mike Watson referred.
In my members' business debate, I touched on sportscotland's role. I suggested that we could use the current review of planning guidelines for the planning bill to tighten up the system by providing for a presumption against the loss of recreational space. However, the issue can become complicated if, as might happen in Glasgow for instance, it is proposed that three blaes football pitches that are not used because they are in such a rundown state should be replaced by a modern floodlit all-weather surface that will be put to far greater use.
I take Campbell Martin's point about the users of such facilities often being required to pay a fee, but that does not necessarily exclude new developments, especially if the new facility is run by the local authority. In such situations, perhaps sportscotland should not object to a proposal that will result in greater recreational use. However, I disagree with Campbell Martin's suggestion that no objection would be made if the new facility was some distance away. New developments need to be accessible to the community in which the original facility was located. Otherwise, we get into the issue of what in Glasgow we call territorialism. Sometimes, young people from one area are reluctant to go even to an adjacent area only half a mile away, as there may be various reasons why it would not be regarded as safe to do that. Those sorts of considerations need to be built in as well.
We should ask sportscotland for its comments on the Executive's letter, especially on the aspect about applications that have
"attracted a substantial body of objection."
We should also ask it about the accessibility of new facilities, which should be at least comparable to, if not better than, access to the previous facilities.
The Executive's letter states that it has commissioned research into the use of open spaces. That is germane to today's discussion and it should also inform the new planning bill.
I endorse that point. We have a need not only for formal recreation spaces such as football and hockey pitches, but for open spaces such as parkland where people can go for physical activity. As a nation, we are not nearly as fit as we should be, so any opportunity for physical activity should be maintained and protected.
An essential point is that no community wants to lose open space where that can be avoided. That is the fundamental point from which we all start. Thereafter, other needs—such as the need in Ayrshire for a new school building—must also be satisfied. It is certainly not a joking matter. We need to balance those difficulties.
Convener, I am sorry to dominate the discussion, but I also meant to suggest earlier that our letter to sportscotland should ask for its views on the requirement whereby planning applications are referred to it only if they will result in the loss of recreational space of more than 0.4 hectares. That means that proposals for tennis courts and bowling greens may not be referred. Of course, one of our petitions was from Dowanhill tennis club about the loss of tennis courts in a city-centre setting. I would like to ask sportscotland whether that requirement should be reduced to bring proposals for bowling greens and tennis courts within its purview. In that case, sportscotland would be a statutory consultee in those situations as well.
Are you talking about referring to sportscotland proposals that deal specifically with sports facilities?
Yes.
I endorse what Mike Watson has said. I, too, participated in his debate last week. I agree that we need to get sportscotland's perspective on the issue. Its original letter to the committee left the clear impression that it felt that it was between a rock and a hard place. However, when I listened carefully to the minister's summing up of the debate last week, I did not get the impression that she had moved in any great way to accommodate sportscotland's concerns.
Those concerns were that, given the current procurement methods and the support for councils to procure new schools, there was a gap between what the councils could afford and how much they were being funded by the Executive. In those circumstances, it is natural for the local authority to look to its own estate for a cheap alternative source of land. Too often, that land comes via places such as the old racecourse in Ayr or the Laighdykes playing field, which are well-used facilities whose disappearance would be a loss to the local community.
We need a definitive response from sportscotland to what the minister has said. Clearly sportscotland wants the petition to be referred to a subject committee of the Parliament so that the matter can be investigated. I know that the Transport and the Environment Committee worked on the issue during the previous parliamentary session, but the issue needs to be revisited.
We still have a bit of work to do on the petition before we refer it. We tend not to send petitions on to subject committees until we have researched them as deeply as we can.
The three petitions are connected. We have to go back to all three petitioners to get their perspectives on the response and to find out how it relates to each particular issue. However, I take on board what members have said about the importance of contacting sportscotland. If we write to sportscotland and to the three petitioners to get their perspectives on the response, we will collate all that information and at that point decide how to progress the issues raised by the petitions.
You did not mention the Executive.
We have to get responses from the petitioners and sportscotland to take back to the Executive. We need a response from the petitioner to the Executive's response. We can then go back to the Executive or refer the petition on to a subject committee to consider.
Okay.
That concludes our deliberations for this morning. I thank everyone for their attendance. We look forward to this afternoon's awareness-raising agenda.
Meeting closed at 13:22.