Planning
We come now to agenda item 3. I welcome the officials from the Scottish Executive Development Department: Jim Mackinnon, chief planner, and Tim Barraclough, head of planning division 1.
We have rather fallen behind time. This is an important agenda item, but I am keen that we give sufficient time to the next agenda item, on petitions. I am aware that some members must leave at 12.30 pm—Stewart Stevenson has already given us his apologies because he has to attend another committee meeting. The format for this part of the meeting is that the officials will give the committee a brief presentation. We have discussed the questions that we want to ask, but I ask members to concentrate their minds a little. I would like to complete this part of the meeting by 12.10 pm. I do not want to curtail anyone and I will not do so, but it would be helpful if people could curtail themselves.
We are at the beginning rather than at the end of a dialogue with the Executive, so members should not feel that they must discuss the issues with ministers by proxy. Our witnesses are officials, not ministers. The officials know the limits of their authority and they must tell us if they feel that it would be inappropriate for them to answer certain questions. I will not allow members to try to persuade the officials to answer such questions. We can take up such matters with ministers.
I thank the witnesses for coming and for supplying copies of the slides that they will use in their presentation. We will ask questions after the presentation.
Jim Mackinnon (Scottish Executive Development Department):
Thank you. I was asked to provide an update on our proposals to modernise the planning system. I will concentrate on the national planning framework and on two consultation papers: "Making Development Plans Deliver" and "Rights of Appeal in Planning". Those papers, along with the document "National Planning Framework for Scotland" were published in April.
We embarked on the national planning framework for a number of reasons. First, the geography of Europe has been changing and we needed to reflect on what that means for Scotland. Denmark, for example, has not just reflected on the matter but has taken action by completing the fixed link to Sweden. There were other reasons. For example, reports from the pathfinders to the Parliament initiative indicated the need for a high-level vision for land use and infrastructure in Scotland. There was also a perceived gap in Executive policy; the Executive had policies on the environment and the economy but no policy on the geography of Scotland.
We adopted an inclusive approach to the preparation of the framework. There were two rounds of regional seminars in five different parts of Scotland. We held a wide range of meetings and gave presentations to members of the Scottish Parliament and councillors. An ad hoc ministerial group oversaw the process. The document that we prepared had to recognise the diversity of Scotland and provide a national planning framework. It was not intended to address issues that can and should be dealt with locally. To use a good European term, it had to respect the principle of subsidiarity.
We wanted to consider how Scotland had been changing and how it is likely to change in the future. Much has been said and written about the challenges that are posed by population decline but, if we unpack the headline figures, the results are revealing. During the past 20 years, there has been an 18 per cent decrease in the number of people under 15 and a 29 per cent increase in the number of people over 75. Scotland has the lowest birth rate in the United Kingdom and the age profile of migrants demonstrates that the people who leave Scotland are in the 25 to 34 age group, whereas inward migrants tend to be over 45.
There is a distinct geography of population change. Major growth is forecast in the east of the country and decline is forecast in Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverclyde and two of the island groups: the Western Isles and Orkney. However, because household size is falling, the number of households is expected to grow by 7 per cent by 2016. That is a significant reduction from previous projections, but increases of 20 per cent or more are forecast in the east of the country—in West Lothian, for example. Decreases are forecast in Dundee and Inverclyde.
Infrastructure deficits have emerged as a major issue in the national planning framework. The provision of education and health services is causing concern in growth areas and there are major difficulties with water and drainage in parts of Scotland where significant priority has been attached to regeneration.
Employment change also has a distinct geography. Major employment growth has been experienced in Glasgow as a result of sustained regeneration efforts, although half the jobs in the city are not taken up by Glasgow residents. Edinburgh, West Lothian, Midlothian and Perth and Kinross are also experiencing growth. Areas that are experiencing decline include an arc that runs through Dumfries and Galloway, Ayrshire and Renfrewshire to West Dunbartonshire, as well as Dundee and all the island groups. New jobs have been concentrated around motorway junctions, airports or arterial roads and there has been a clustering of activity, such as the technology parks in Edinburgh. Town centres have been a major focus of growth in the service industry, including financial and professional services, public administration, retailing and entertainment.
The document "The European Spatial Development Perspective" asserts the benefits of balance in a polycentric settlement pattern, but it is difficult to envisage how Scotland could ever achieve such a geographic nirvana. Even by European standards, we have some extremely sparsely populated areas and the sense of remoteness or wilderness is an important asset, particularly for the leisure and tourism industries. At the other end of the spectrum are cities. Our cities are small in European terms, but they have great significance for Scotland's economy. The cities offer well-paid jobs, a range of cultural attractions, universities and air links. However, around two in five people in Scotland live in small towns. Some of those towns are absolute gems; others show the effects of economic restructuring.
There are two overarching themes in the national planning framework, the first of which is improving connectivity. That is about recognising that Scotland's position at the extreme north-west of Europe is fixed and that we need to respond to the continent's changing geography. It is not just about external connections; improving internal connectivity is also important to promote economic development outwith the central belt and to support regeneration. The second theme is about maintaining the quality of our best areas and addressing the deficiencies of others.
Below the overarching issues, spatial aspects of economic development, transport, water and drainage, renewable energy and waste are discussed. We have also drawn up spatial perspectives for different parts of Scotland. Not surprisingly, Edinburgh and Glasgow are recognised as two economic and cultural anchors, linked by a fast transport system. I indicated that our cities are small in European terms, but the combined size of the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow resonates at European level.
Not all areas can be tackled at the same time and the framework recognises a number of areas in which co-ordinated action is required. A planning framework for west Edinburgh was drawn up and published in spring last year. The framework was influential in securing the commitment to service Edinburgh airport with light rail. As a result of the air transport white paper, there is a requirement to reserve land for a second runway, so we are committed to revising the west Edinburgh planning framework.
In the west of Scotland, significant investment is under way on the Clyde waterfront, where there are significant issues surrounding access, land remediation and flooding. On the east side of Glasgow, there is the Clyde gateway. Construction of the M74 extension will lead to significant improvements in accessibility to an area with a substantial concentration of deprivation and dereliction. There is a major opportunity for sustainable regeneration—not just building business or retail warehouse parks or executive housing, but seeking opportunities such as greening through social forestry. The area has the potential to be a long-term development reserve.
The framework recognises the Aberdeen-Edinburgh-Newcastle corridor, which includes four cities with universities, plus St Andrews. We believe that there is significant potential for linking knowledge-based expertise and initiative along the corridor. It is interesting that, although Aberdeen and Newcastle are equidistant from Edinburgh, the train journey from Edinburgh to Aberdeen takes an hour longer than the journey from Edinburgh to Newcastle. Reduced journey times can help to unlock the potential that exists and can enable us to capitalise on opportunities in countries bordering the North sea and the Baltic. The north-east faces a potential loss of 9,000 oil-related jobs, but there is scope to diversify the economy in the fields of renewable energy and media. Dundee faces major regeneration challenges. Bringing the city within one hour's journey time of Edinburgh could assist it in that task.
Ayrshire and the south-west are recognised and important gateways, especially to and from Ireland, which is important for Scotland economically and culturally. The aim is to build on the success of Prestwick, which has been Scotland's fastest-growing airport, and to realise the potential of deepwater assets at Hunterston.
Planning in rural Scotland has long had a bad press. Indeed, it has been presented as continuing the work of the Highland clearances. Recently, we published a draft Scottish planning policy on rural development, which emphasises the importance of a planned approach to promoting development. Under the reform of the common agricultural policy, land management contracts will be introduced that will bring together agricultural potential, environmental character and economic opportunities. Higher education is also a catalyst for economic development. A particularly important example of that is the Crichton campus in Dumfries. It is not surprising that there are also opportunities based on natural resources, not least renewable energy, but also the processing of food, especially fish.
The fragile areas programme and initiative at the edge recognise the special challenges that face peripheral, sparsely populated areas. The area that faces the most acute economic and demographic challenges is the Western Isles, which may experience a population decline of 17 per cent by 2018. Here peripherality and depopulation combine to present major challenges, but the area has a unique cultural and natural heritage that, together with a strong identity, may prove to provide a sufficient mass to achieve long-term regeneration.
The framework is not a master plan, but it highlights the long-term issues and choices that face Scotland and is an important input to policy and spending decisions. We see the publication of the framework as marking the beginning of a debate on Scotland's future and intend to update it every four years. Fundamentally, it is about Scotland looking forward and outwards.
Development plans are a key means of advancing the framework. On 1 April, the consultation paper "Making Development Plans Deliver" was published. This was the follow-up to the review of strategic planning, the conclusions of which were announced in June 2002. The review was about the overall structure of development planning, rather than a detailed focus on process and procedure, which we felt would get in the way of a more general debate.
The conclusions of the review indicated that there would be a single tier of development planning across Scotland. Structure plans were to be discontinued for every area and replaced by city region plans focusing on the four largest cities. We came to that conclusion because only in the city regions are there genuinely strategic planning issues relating to land and infrastructure that cross administrative boundaries.
We have now announced changes in the process by which the city region plans will be drawn up and in their content. The process must be speeded up and significant changes must be made to the approval process. That will involve a mandatory public examination, as well as reducing the time that plans spend with ministers. At the heart of the city region plans must be a long-term settlement strategy, in which the trade-offs between locational options are identified and evaluated. We are looking for plans to be shorter and written as a narrative.
The record on local planning makes dismal reading. Almost 40 per cent of plans were adopted 10 or more years ago. That is difficult to defend when we have had a plan-led system for nigh on 15 years. We were convinced that no procedural quick fixes were available and that modernisation could be achieved only by concentrating on the following themes.
The first theme is management. If pressed to describe the one barrier to improved performance in development planning and development control, I would say that it was the lack of effective management. That embraces political commitment and senior management support.
Consultation is a key element of the reform package. We have made several proposals to secure more effective engagement, including the need for councils to adopt a targeted approach to consultation and the possible introduction of neighbour notification on key proposals. We have also floated the idea of imposing a statutory duty on key agencies to engage with the development plan.
Another element is focus. Many plans have lost a clear sense of their purpose or identity. Too many plans have become documents in which everything is relevant. That attempt at achieving comprehensiveness has often been at the expense of comprehension.
The final element is delivery. We have proposed an action plan that will be updated every two years to say how a plan is being progressed. We must seek to operationalise development plans. The aim of that is to make clear who is responsible for what and when action will be taken. If plans are not seen to make a difference, why should stakeholders engage with them? We have also floated the idea of sanctions when plans are not kept up to date.
Several factors fuel the demand to extend the right to appeal planning decisions. At the most basic level, many regard the planning system as having a fundamental unfairness, because developers have the right of appeal whereas communities whose lives may be fundamentally altered do not have a similar right. Added to that is the concern about the tendency of some environmentally damaging or obtrusive operations to locate next to less-affluent communities that do not have the expertise or resources to repel boarders. However, if the evidence from Ireland is anything to go by, it is more likely that affluent communities would activate a right of appeal.
The subject raises all sorts of issues. First and foremost, it needs to be recognised that the matter is complex and attracts polarised views. A range of questions is involved. Should we withdraw the right to have an inquiry into local plan objections and leave the method of dealing with them to the reporter? If a third-party right of appeal is to be introduced for planning cases, why should it not be introduced for other consent regimes? What level of additional resources will be required? If the number of inquiry reporters must increase and most are recruited from local authorities, what are the implications for the planning services locally? What are the implications for the recruitment of people into the profession generally?
The consultation paper "Rights of Appeal in Planning" sets out the arguments for and against a third-party right of appeal and four options for change. We involved a stakeholder group in producing the consultation paper. The first option is to introduce an extended right of appeal that is based on the four categories in the partnership agreement. The second is to keep the status quo. Ministers were keen to emphasise that that would mean maintaining and accelerating our modernisation programme. The third option is maintaining the modernisation programme but adding requirements on local authorities to hold hearings in some circumstances and to notify the Executive of not only structure plan departures, but local plan departures. The final and more radical option is a completely new appeal system that would give first and third parties equal rights but would introduce a screening process to sift out appeals when no substantive issues were involved.
The exercise is being undertaken from a neutral standpoint. It concerns not how but whether to introduce a wider right of appeal. In the light of press reports earlier this week, I reiterate what the Minister for Communities, Margaret Curran, said on Monday:
"I can categorically state that no decision has been made on … Third Party Right of Appeal. A detailed consultation was launched on April 1 and continues until the end of July."
An ambitious planning reform programme is under way. As the minister said in her statement to the Parliament in April, we intend to bring together our final proposals in a single document that will identify what is for legislation, for policy, for guidance and for advice.
I thank Jim Mackinnon for his presentation. I will kick off the questions. Successful implementation of the national planning framework will depend on co-ordinated action by all Executive departments, local government and the private sector. How good we are at joined-up working is an issue. Is the Executive committed to joined-up working? How is that being developed? How will the Executive involve local authorities and the private sector? How will implementation of the framework be monitored and reviewed?
The implementation is already having an impact in the Executive. For example, we are refreshing "The Way Forward: Framework for Economic Development in Scotland" and taking spatial factors into account. A consultation paper on water and drainage infrastructure will go out shortly, which will address service and development issues. We also have the ministerial group on regeneration.
We work closely with local authorities. Every six months, we have meetings with heads of planning. We also visit local authorities regularly. The authorities will have to take the framework into account in formulating their development plans. As I said, the framework is national, not local. A lot of flesh has to be put on the bones—for example, in defining the boundaries of sites. That is being done in partnership with local authorities—for sites in the west of Edinburgh, for example. We hope to work in partnership on development plans as well.
You have touched on the proposal for four city region plans and on the proposal for the removal of strategic-level plans in the rest of Scotland. What effect will that have on areas that fall outwith the city regions?
When we first considered the issue, we asked ourselves, "Is there a case for two tiers of strategic planning throughout Scotland?" In some of the remote rural areas, few issues arise to do with pressure for development. As we considered reform of the planning system, we felt that there was no case for having two tiers. Most rural authorities have supported that idea—especially the elected members, who realised that, in the structure plan and the local plan for their areas, the same issues were coming up time and again. Therefore, we felt that it was worth trying to define what we mean by strategic. If one talks about Edinburgh, one is talking about growth and how to manage it. Edinburgh cannot cope with all the growth by itself, so there is an impact on the surrounding councils, both south and north of the Forth. However, if one is talking about Dundee or Glasgow, one might be talking about regeneration. Lots of greenfield release impacts on the potential to regenerate cities. Therefore, we felt that, in the city regions, having two tiers of development plan was justified.
The national planning framework will provide some context for development planning in areas that will not have two tiers, so we are reasonably comfortable that a strategic context can be provided either by the national planning framework or by councils setting a framework for their more area-specific plans through their local plans.
How do you intend to balance the proposed requirement to ensure that development plans are kept up to date, which seems to have been one of the biggest problems in the current system?
You are right; we have to face that challenge. As I have said, 40 per cent of plans are more than 10 years out of date. In the development industry, there is a lot of support for the idea of sanctions for councils that fail to keep their plans up to date. That issue is highlighted in the consultation paper. However, councils feel that they are under pressure and lack resources. Major research is under way into the resourcing of planning departments.
The heart of a modernised planning system must be up-to-date local plans that command widespread support—not just from the development industry but from local communities. People have to be able to see that decisions are taken in accordance with those plans.
How do we ensure that the plans are kept up to date and that the system is robust, but at the same time ensure that local people are involved in the process, which could be regarded as inhibiting the continuous updating of the plans?
You are right. A tension arises when you try to keep things moving along briskly but, at the same time, try to ensure that people feel included and involved. In the consultation paper, we have made a number of proposals on how to avoid that tension. One proposal is to notify neighbours who could be affected by local plan proposals. We also want to take a more targeted approach to consultation. What is given to a statutory undertaker or to a body such as Scottish Water might be different from what is given to local communities. Some councils have responded in innovative ways to the challenge of community consultation—Highland Council has its planning for real exercise, for example. However, there is undoubtedly a tension between adopting a more inclusive approach and keeping documents up to date.
As I say, in the consultation paper we have raised the prospect of sanctions. However, it is a difficult issue because we could be penalising councils that are trying their best to perform well. It will be interesting to see the responses to the paper.
Has consideration been given to treating the whole of central Scotland as a unit—that is, Edinburgh, Glasgow and all the bits in between, such as Lanarkshire and Falkirk? Does the Edinburgh city region touch the Glasgow city region, or is there a black hole in between?
I do not think that there is a black hole. Edinburgh and Glasgow are becoming increasingly linked together. You just have to drive between them at peak hour times and you can see the strong flows both ways. We have said that there is a need for Edinburgh and Glasgow to co-operate to present themselves as a single urban access in Scotland. We have not given vent to that through specific actions, because we have been talking about city region plans, but there is no doubt that some people feel that that would be a more appropriate way ahead.
In your presentation, you did not mention national parks, which are now planning authorities in their own right. My three questions all relate to national parks. First, what impact will the removal of strategic-level plans have on national parks? Secondly, Cairngorms national park has banned wind farms. Are you comfortable with a national park taking a stance that may be out of kilter with Scottish Executive policy? Thirdly, would the sanctions that apply to local government apply equally to a national park? Can you give me an idea of what those sanctions would be, bearing in mind the fact that Cairngorms national park has a budget of £3 million, in contrast to the multimillion pound budgets of local authorities?
On strategic-level plans in national parks, we have said that a national park plan will be drawn up. There is already provision for that in the legislation. Any park-wide planning issues can reasonably be incorporated in such a document. That is how we see the issue being dealt with.
I am afraid that I am not familiar with what Cairngorms national park has done on renewable energy, but it is for the park authority to decide in the first instance. Although it may have indicated a strong presumption against any wind farm development in the park, a developer might still want to submit an application, which may yet come before the Scottish ministers, so it would be inappropriate for me to comment.
On sanctions, we have suggested that if a council has failed to keep its plan up to date, ministers could direct that it should not take a planning fee, on the basis that it does not have an up-to-date development plan, or we could say that a development plan that is not up to date should be accorded less importance in a planning decision. We have to be careful, because some policies are timeless—for example, natural heritage policies and built heritage policies—whereas others, on land supply, have to be kept up to date.
It is difficult to generalise, but I have outlined some of the sanctions. We have talked about keeping local plans up to date and in the consciousness of the authority by making keeping up-to-date development plans a community planning indicator. We have to recognise that some local plans have fallen behind because of lengthy inquiries, which we are taking steps to deal with, or because they are in the courts.
Cairngorms national park has banned wind farms, but are you saying that the ban can be overturned by Scottish ministers?
It depends on the size of the wind farm. Those of more than 50MW would be dealt with under the Electricity Act 1989, whereas smaller developments would be dealt with by the relevant planning authority. Because there is a prohibition, I would expect the national park authority to refuse any application, but that does not stop someone submitting an application if they think that there is an opportunity there. That application may come to Scottish ministers, either under the Electricity Act 1989 or under the planning acts on appeal, so I cannot comment on the merits of a case. However, that is the route that would be followed.
Thank you for your excellent presentation. I gleaned a lot of information from it. I hope that we can go through the process and get even more information.
You spoke about sanctions for councils and placing a statutory duty on public agencies to be involved in the creation and implementation of development and action plans. What benefits would that bring to agencies and to the general public? How will the development and action plans affect community planning? Will those tie in together or will they be separate?
We will deal with the statutory requirement on agencies. Some councils have argued that some agencies are unwilling to engage in the process. We want development plans to be at the heart of the system. If a site is allocated for development, there should be confidence that it can be serviced for water and drainage and that access will be fairly straightforward—for example, buses can get there. The aim is to get that level of engagement with and commitment to the development plan process.
We have heard about situations in which a site is identified for development in a local plan, the planning application comes in and things begin to fall apart. We want there to be a much higher level of commitment so that we know that the development plan matters, that it makes a difference and that it provides opportunity and certainty—not only for the developer but for local communities, who will know that the site will be developed. That is how we see the process working.
Sorry, what was your second question?
How would the development plan tie in with community planning?
The community plan will set the general strategic vision for an area—often that is about service delivery and general aims and aspirations. The development plan should pick up the land-use consequences of the community plan. For example, if the community plan mentions a new health centre being built in a community, I would not view it as being the community plan's job to say that the centre will be on site A or site B, but the development plan should state that there is a requirement for the community planning process to identify a site for a new health centre in the community, take that as a given and use the local planning process to find a specific site.
Matters that come up in consultation on the development plan process should also be fed into the community planning process; the two processes have distinct roles, but there is some overlap.
On community planning, you said that, if there is a housing development, there is a statutory duty on certain agencies. In the Glasgow area, we could not get housing built because basic electricity and water services could not be provided. Is that the type of thing that you mean when you say that there is a statutory duty? Is there a statutory duty to supply water and electricity if the need for such a supply has been recognised in the development plan and by the community planning process?
We are not saying that they have a statutory duty to provide a service, but they have a statutory duty to engage with the process and to say whether they can provide it. Sometimes it might be a requirement of a planning agreement on a specific site that the houses would be developed and that the developer would provide the drainage connection. It is difficult to generalise, but the aim is to ensure that people understand either that the site could get a water supply or could be drained easily and we can take that as a given, or that there is an issue about water and drainage and that Scottish Water might provide them or they might be funded through an agreement with the developer. The aim is to get that level of certainty into the process.
I have a specific question, but first I want to ask a follow-up question on the issue that you have discussed with Sandra White. Will you consider planning gain to see whether it could be standardised and made easier for communities to get something out of developments, so that, if there is a big housing development, the community would be able to engage more easily with the process and get something back?
People feel that there have been a lot of planning consultations recently, but we are aware that one matter on which we have not done any formal consultation is the sensitive subject of planning agreements.
Planning agreements have changed quite a lot over the years. The legislation is quite old and is about regulating the use of land. The way in which such agreements used to work was that there would be, say, a planning application for housing in the countryside and it would be restricted for use by someone in agriculture or forestry, or a roundabout would have to be provided for a supermarket development. Our policy is that those things should be direct and proportionate.
The use of planning agreements has expanded in Scotland over the past few years, so there are now more than there have ever been, but they still affect a relatively small percentage of all applications. We have also seen an extension of their scope. They are no longer about only a roundabout for a supermarket development; they are about wider issues that could relate to community benefits.
For example, some councils in the north-east very clearly set out what they expect of developers. We want to encourage that process. Indeed, as Sandra White mentioned, the development plan plays a fundamental role in creating certainty in the infrastructure. It is important not just for development interests but for local communities to know what a developer who submits an application might be expected to provide in a particular area.
A colleague on secondment from Dundee City Council has carried out a lot of work on this matter and we are advancing our thinking on it. You are absolutely right to say that planning gain is an important part of the planning reform agenda. However, we have not consulted on it, because people are beginning to suffer from consultation fatigue on this matter.
I have a follow-up question about planning gain. Local communities are cynical about the whole process; after all, they are promised the earth until planning permission is given, and then nothing transpires.
I asked earlier about joined-up thinking. I know of one particular Scottish Executive department that was seeking a planning gain. How do you prevent people going into silos when that happens and ensure that they take into account how a development can generally benefit a community? After all, the benefits that a development might have for an individual department might not necessarily be in tune with community regeneration and so on. How do you bring such an approach out into the open?
I am not particularly sure what you have in mind, convener. When Scottish ministers exercise their planning role, they do not conclude agreements with developers.
I will give you an example. Where a development requires a change to the road network—which is the Executive's responsibility—how do you get the department with responsibility for roads to consider other community interests beyond what happens to the road? I am sure that the same would hold for any department that is delivering a national service.
If someone submitted an application that involved consultation with those who were responsible for the trunk road network, those people would be asked for their views in the usual way. It might well be that they would want, for example, improvements to a junction. That could be dealt with in various ways by, for example, a planning agreement or setting particular conditions.
It would then be up to Glasgow City Council, North Lanarkshire Council or whatever council to decide the best package of measures and specify that in a planning agreement. Any council that considers an individual development must examine the matter in the round. For example, it might think about whether access should be funded through trunk roads, whether they want certain aspects related to education to be taken into account in the development and so on.
That said, our work and research have highlighted a lack of transparency in the process and a lack of clarity about what happens to the financial or other benefits that might accrue. I know that some English councils indicate on their websites that, for example, they got £100,000 from a development and then show how that money was used. We are actively considering taking such an approach in the forthcoming planning bill to ensure a degree of transparency and accountability about what happens to the community benefits. There should be no suspicion that money simply went into coffers and disappeared. If one community experiences negative impacts from a particular development and a planning agreement is concluded to mitigate those effects, it is important to give guarantees and assurances that the money is being spent locally.
Having worked as a clerk on a planning committee, I agree with the convener's comments about how we find out whether benefits are being delivered. For example, a house builder might agree to include a tennis court in a particular development; however, four years down the line, houses might suddenly appear on that land because they bring in more profit.
I do not know whether it is appropriate for you to answer this question, but I understand that there has been a problem with private finance initiative/public-private partnership projects and have received some conflicting information from the minister and the department on a particular matter. It appears that councils are not giving the Executive any notice to develop because the private profiteer company is responsible for the development in question. As a result, even though council land or a council-run school might be involved, the matter is being dealt with in the local planning process.
To give an example, in Dunbeth park in Coatbridge, a plan to build a football pitch with floodlights in the park is upsetting local people. I understand that the proposal did not come to the Scottish Executive because the private part of the contract will develop it. Going back to what the convener was saying about joined-up thinking, it seems to me that there is a national issue. Given the Executive's desire to tackle obesity, it strikes me that green spaces in towns should not be being developed in that fashion. I have no objection to the creation of the proposed facility, but I do not think that it should be built on an existing green space. Will such issues be considered as part of the process?
There are two routes by which a local authority can advance a major development. One is what is called the notice of intention to develop. That is the traditional route, and you are correct to note that we now have PFIs and PPPs. In that circumstance, the local authority is the developer and must notify the Scottish Executive if there is a local authority interest, for example, if the local authority is the landowner or has a financial interest. We have had a significant number of applications notified to us on that ground. One of the most common cases involves an application for a development—which could be for housing, schools or whatever—in an area that a local plan has identified for open space. Over the years, we have called in a number of such applications—in fact, it is probably the largest category of applications that we have called in. We take such cases seriously because we represent the Scottish ministers' planning interest and our job relates to the proper planning of an area, which should not be influenced by financial considerations.
Is there a loophole whereby a PPP project does not have to be notified to the Scottish Executive?
That is for the local authority to decide. We do not have much information before the local authority notifies us. We can issue a direction requiring councils to notify us about something that is going on, but we need to know about it in the first case. We have done that on occasion.
There is quite strong national policy in place in relation to open space and we have committed to reviewing the situation again over the next couple of years. We have issued advice on the need for open-space audits to consider not only the quantity of open space but also the quality.
On your point about tennis courts, the quality of open space management and maintenance is quite a big issue in relation to modern private housing developments.
Whether we are professional planners, applicants, community groups, private sector representatives or whatever, we are all agreed that the planning system is outdated and needs to be modernised. Most people have welcomed the opportunity to take part in the Executive's consultation exercise. Even before people start to examine fully the various issues that are involved, agreement exists about the fact that, at the early stages of the process, we need to have local and regional plans that people feel they have some ownership of and can sign up to.
Getting away from big developers, who have always got involved in the local planning process, how have you ensured that local communities and local business communities engage in the consultation so that their views can shape the legislation?
That is quite difficult, frankly. When we wrote "Getting Involved in Planning", we considered various ways of securing the involvement of people other than the usual suspects in the public and private sectors. We wanted to achieve the Heineken effect and reach the parts that we do not normally reach.
We did gap research, and had people considering the issues and finding out what local communities thought about them. We have had quite a lot of engagement as part of the modernisation agenda. The minister will be engaging with the business community as well as environmental groups and community groups to find out what they think about issues such as the wider right of appeal in planning. We have undertaken quite a lot of speaking engagements. The information is available electronically and it is widely known that a fundamental debate is taking place at the moment on the modernisation of the planning system. However, any ideas that the committee has about engaging more people in the process would be welcome.
I move on to third-party rights of appeal. Having already conducted a consultation on public involvement in planning, why has the Executive decided to hold a separate consultation on the third-party right of appeal?
When we consulted on "Getting Involved in Planning", ministers took the view that they did not want to debate the third-party right of appeal. However, in the responses to the consultation, a significant number of people said that they thought that there was pressure for it. Ministers took the view that the issue should be debated because it is important to debate the issue before there is a planning bill. It is a complex subject; the principle is quite easy to understand but it raises all sorts of issues about the scope of an appeal and the resource implications. There was a feeling that things have moved on and that we need to have a proper debate about the issue before we introduce a planning bill.
Most of the debate seems to be taking place around the criteria on which the third-party right of appeal would be based and that is obviously included in the consultation paper. However, I am not clear about something. In your opening statement, you talked about people whose lives are affected by a planning application. Will only those people have a third-party right of appeal? Who will be eligible?
As I say, the consultation is about whether there will be a third-party right of appeal and not about how it would work. If the decision is made to introduce a wider right of appeal in planning, there will have to be a decision about who should have that right. When we have talked about a new right of appeal, we have talked about an objector, because it is difficult to define in law who is affected by a planning application. For example, it could be that a development involves discharging effluent to a river, so the people who are affected might not be those who live immediately adjacent to the particular facility; it might be people who live five, 10 or 15 miles down the road.
We want to use the consultation paper to flag up those issues in the same way as Mary Scanlon is asking pertinent questions about the e-planning regulations. If we are to go down that route, we have to get the definitions absolutely right, so that we are clear about the implications.
In some countries, such as Ireland, a person has to have objected before they can lodge an appeal. That has meant that people from outwith Ireland could lodge an appeal; concerns have been raised about that. Equally, in other countries, the definition of who can appeal is much narrower; the property of the person who is appealing has to be directly affected.
I do not have a direct answer to the question of who will be eligible. The consultation is about whether the third-party right of appeal will be introduced. If it is, we will have to be clear about who would have that right.
I have one point to give you an idea of where I am coming from. I am an MSP for the Highlands and Islands. The funicular railway in the Cairngorms was delayed for many years. I cannot remember the figures offhand but approximately 90 per cent of those who opposed it lived well outside the Cairngorms and the Highlands. In fact, they came from many places in the world. Recently, I received objections to the planning application for the centre in Glencoe from climbers from all over the world.
I want to be clear about this issue. Local communities might be in favour of developments such as the funicular railway, but they might find that a development is held up because of objections from people who visit the locality and live in many parts of the world. It would be helpful to know who could object and on what grounds in the Highlands and Islands.
You are absolutely right to raise that point, which is an example of the complexity of the issues. Just as objections might come from outwith the area, there are planning application cases on which communities are split—there is a volume of opinion for a development and one against it.
Absolutely.
There are many examples of that. All that the consultation paper is saying is that if we go down the route of having a wider right of appeal, we will have to address that issue. If we enshrine such a right in legislation, we will have to be clear about the implications.
It is very difficult.
I want to pick up on your comments about the recent media report that ministers had cooled on the TPRA and ask you to expand on that in light of your comments about involving people in the consultation. I feel quite strongly that the absence of a TPRA makes people feel excluded from the planning system and that kind of media report is likely to deepen that pre-existing feeling of exclusion from the process. I have already taken phone calls from people who were planning to respond to the consultation and are now asking what the point is and why they should bother. I am obviously trying to persuade them that it is still worth their while to make that effort. Have there been discussions in the Executive about how to counter that sort of media report, if indeed it is completely unfounded?
All that I can say is that we have taken lots of telephone calls about that as well. I reiterate what Margaret Curran said on Monday. She stated categorically that no decision has been made on the third-party right of appeal. The consultation was launched on 1 April and it continues until the end of July.
Have there been no discussions about how to promote that, now that there has been some controversy?
Some parliamentary questions will be asked tomorrow on the issue.
I take on board what the officials say about the information, which was obviously taken in good faith by the media. I lodged my bill for third-party right of appeal simply because of the 2003 planning consultation. I am sure that you can answer for yourself, but the public out there obviously want some form of appeal and I hope that what we have seen is simply a blip in the system and will not carry on.
There have been media reports about big business developers and environmentalists battling it out. Although they seem to make the news, the people who are most affected are those who have to live with developments. If there was a third-party right of appeal or a widening of the appeal, how would you be able to reconcile the big businesses' concerns and the aspects of the process that concern the environmentalists? Do you envisage the consultation process going some way towards doing that?
We would like a lot of those tensions to be resolved through the development plan process and we want clear policies to be set out so that people can have confidence that an outcome will be set out in the local plan. That is critical. The trouble with planning is that it is where economic, social and environmental agendas all come together, and that can present people with difficult decisions. It is nice to get win-win situations, but that is not always possible and a decision has to be made about what is most important in any given situation.
Our aspiration is certainly to try to head off the problems at the pass, so that we have genuine community engagement and business engagement in the planning process, and so that a development plan, as a statutory document, is in place and decisions are taken in line with that plan. That is our aspiration, but there will always be specific applications and developments that people are not terribly comfortable with, understandably.
There is widespread support for the aims of speeding up the planning process and making it more certain. I think that many developers would prefer to know fairly quickly that they were on a loser rather than letting things drift on. Is it your intention to try to achieve the objectives of speeding up and making more certain the planning system? Without prejudging whether it will happen, can you say whether it is possible to incorporate some form of third-party right of appeal?
The aim is certainly to speed up the planning system. I said that local plans are out of date; some local plans are taking five, six or seven years to produce, and people may have forgotten why the plan was produced in the first place.
On wider rights of appeal, I can only reiterate the point that the matter is out to consultation. The relationship between such rights and the local plan is obviously an issue on which ministers will need to come to a view. At this point, it is quite difficult to say much beyond that.
Is the choice between, on the one hand, speeding up the system and making decisions more certain and, on the other, having third-party rights of appeal? Might it be possible to merge those aims?
I think that it is possible to speed up the system and have more effective community engagement.
I strongly believe that local plans should be developed by local people and that they should have the support of the local community. If things worked properly, that is how local plans would operate. The proposal to set a timeframe within which local authorities will have to update their plans so that plans are regularly revised can only be beneficial.
Do the consultation papers include the option of providing for no right of appeal against a local authority decision to refuse a planning application on the basis that it conflicts with a local plan that was supported by the community and adopted by the local authority? Although some might think that a backward step, I strongly believe in putting more emphasis on local plans and in giving more power to local communities by allowing their locally elected representatives to take decisions.
If we introduce third-party rights of appeal, we might as well do away with local planning departments and let the Scottish Executive Development Department deal with all applications. Rather than clog up the system with third-party right of appeals, we need to ensure that we have the right local plans at the very beginning with the support of the local community. Does the consultation include scope to provide for a mechanism that would allow rights of appeal to ministers to be withdrawn?
I share entirely the aspiration that local plans should be supported by the local community, be kept up to date and have a real impact on decision making.
When I outlined the options for a wider right of appeal in planning, I mentioned the potential for a radical overhaul of the appeals system. One proposed option is that if we treated first-party appeals—namely, appeals from developers—in the same way as appeals from third parties, all appeals would need to go through a screening process to determine whether they could go forward to inquiry reporters. That might catch appeals for proposals that flew in the face of an up-to-date local plan. We included that option as an attempt to respond to people's concern about what was seen to be a fundamental imbalance in the system. We thought that it might be worth exploring that option further, which is why we included it in the consultation paper.
If it is appropriate to do so, can you give us an indication of what might be in the planning bill? When is the bill expected to be introduced and when will we need to clear a space in our diaries to deal with it?
The "Options for Change" paper that we published last September brought together many of our existing commitments, such as our proposals for city region plans and for many other areas in which it is possible that legislation might be introduced, such as for the planning agreements that Elaine Smith mentioned. We are beginning to put together the whole package of reform by identifying what needs to be in the bill, what should go in secondary legislation—such as the permitted development orders that Sandra White mentioned, which will also have consequences—and what is for guidance and advice. Some of our objectives may not require legislation, but in other cases legislation is fundamental.
Our intention is to introduce a bill at some time in the current parliamentary session, subject to parliamentary time. That is the agenda that we are working to at the moment.
With that, I thank the witnesses for their attendance. We have had a useful first stab at what is a very big issue. We appreciate the time that you have given in delivering the presentation and in entering a dialogue with the committee.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—