Communities Committee, 25 Jan 2006

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Official Report 360KB pdf

---

Petitions

---

Schools Projects (Open Space) (PE906)<br />Local Plans (Housing) (PE907)

Agenda item 2 is on two new petitions that the Public Petitions Committee has referred to us for our consideration. The first petition is PE906 by Murray Dickie, on behalf of Torbrex community council, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to institute a moratorium on all public-private partnership school projects that are still at the planning stage or which are proposed, until a proper audit of open-space loss has taken place and strict new guidelines have been issued to all Scottish councils on present and future PPP school projects, especially in relation to open spaces and environmental sustainability.

Petition PE907, by Fionn Stevenson, on behalf of Tayport local plan action group, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to review the requirements on local authorities to demonstrate that they have fully, financially and transparently accounted for the need for inadequate local services to be upgraded prior to the development of new housing in their proposed local plans, according to the relevant regulations and other statutory instruments that relate to the production of local plans under the Town and Country Planning (Structure and Local Plans) (Scotland) Regulations 1983 (SI 1983/1590) and the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997.

It is proposed that the planning-related issues contained in the petitions be included during the committee's consideration of the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill or of the related planning guidance. As members have no comments I will take it that they are content with the proposal. We will consider the issues in relation to the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill and other relevant planning guidance, but we will take no further action in relation to the petitions.

Item 3 on the agenda is also on petitions, and concerns how the committee will consider the inclusion of planning issues from previous petitions in its scrutiny of the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. The paper that has been prepared by the clerks lists a number of planning-related issues that have been raised in petitions referred to the Communities Committee. Members are invited to comment on the issues and on the recommendations that are made in the paper with a view to agreeing a course of action for considering the issues in the context of the bill.

The paper is a useful crib sheet, if you like, which will serve us well during the whole course of our discussions on the bill. I thank the clerks for their work in putting it together.

I agree. We have had many petitions on the subject and the paper is what we all needed. We have said that we will consider the petitions and it is helpful to have a written account of all the issues, so that we can keep a note of them and refer back to them, when appropriate and necessary, during our questioning of witnesses.

I take it that we have an electronic version of the paper.

Yes, we do.

The issues raised tie in with the questioning that we have just conducted with the last set of witnesses about telecoms masts. I am happy with the recommendation that the committee should bear them all in mind at relevant points during our consideration of the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill. If the clerks could jog our memories when anything relevant comes up, that would be appropriate.

I am sure that the clerks will jog our memories, but we also have a responsibility, as conscientious committee members, to jog our own memories and remember that we have this helpfully prepared crib sheet. As we are questioning witnesses on particular areas of the bill, we might wish to give some consideration to the points that the various petitions have raised.

Those members who are still present are very conscientious.

Indeed we are. I am grateful to members for their continued attendance today.

Meeting closed at 13:22.