Chamber and committees

In the monitoring and assessment work that the Government is doing, could you look at that factor—that planning conditions are not being complied with?

I will pick up on that point. A number of times, you mentioned stalled sites and your efforts to understand why work is not being taken forward on a significant amount of land that has planning permission. Are you in a position to tell us what you are discovering? You mentioned that resource is an issue.

That is helpful. The issue has certainly come up in other areas of our work and in our evidence sessions, so it is good to hear that you are doing that work. The committee would be interested to see the conclusion of that work, when you get to it.

It is about seeing what the blockages are and whether there are patterns in that. How often is it a transport issue? How often is it a section 75 issue? We want to understand that.

Great. We look forward to seeing what you come up with.

I will go online and bring in Mark Griffin.

That concludes our questions. It has been a useful discussion; it has been great to hear the Government’s position on guidance and to get into some of the details. The fact that a certain number of sites already have planning permission and you are looking into why that is not translating into housing being built on the ground is interesting.

I thank the minister and his officials for their evidence.

That concludes our questions, but I will pick up on a few threads, if you do not mind. Fulton MacGregor asked about dynamic documents. As I understand it, RTPI has said that its members and planners in general are finding that, although NPF4 is an unchanging document, many different bits of guidance pop up, so navigating and keeping track of them is a challenge. The metaphor that I use is that it is like walking through a field after a rainstorm and seeing all the mushrooms that have popped up: work is being done on a mycelial Government network and lots of things have appeared, but it is unclear how they link to each other. My sense is that the RTPI is asking for a dashboard or a way of organising all the materials in one place so that it is easy to see it all and where it has been updated. What are your thoughts on that?

My concern is that it would add another layer, in that there would be a requirement to set up a board. I think that Orkney Islands Council has demonstrated a good approach, which is to say, “We are going to set up this board. We are going to do this, get the funding and support the local place plan, rather than creating something new.” I am concerned that we will start to create lots of different streams of activity in communities where we do not have the capacity to manage it all.

When the Dunoon Community Development Trust produced its local place plan, it realised that it needed to create a community action plan. It is interesting that that work has triggered activity beyond the spatial plan. The committee identified early on that there is a connection between what is needed for spatial planning, public services and support for communities. That is quite interesting.

Finally, I want to take us back to the beginning of the conversation. Minister, earlier, you were talking about the fact that there are a certain number of sites that have planning permission. I do not think that the Government can necessarily rule on that but, as an example, I was speaking to a development trust in Highland, which pointed out that, in its area, there were 53 small sites where a private developer had received planning permission for a personal home that was not built, which means that there are 53 houses that could be being built but are not being built. You are all nodding your heads—as you know, one house in a community in rural Scotland can make the difference in keeping a community alive. Is there anything that can be done in the guidance or to create a culture of support for local authorities to somehow find a way to put those sites back into the mix so that communities could take a project forward?

I see your point that, at present, hutting takes place mostly on private land, but there is an incredible opportunity to have hutting happen on public land; that is why the trial is taking place. My amendment is about creating more opportunities, and possibly making it easier in some ways, for people to access that land. In addition, we have to acknowledge that there is quite a lot of public land surrounding communities that could become available to people.

Thank you, convener—it is good to be here. I apologise to colleagues that I was not able to be at the previous meeting because I was convening the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee.

Informal buildings, or huts, are important for a number of reasons. They provide a base for outdoor activity; enable the development of better understanding of our natural environment; encourage the development of new skills; provide a platform for the creation of cohesive communities; and contribute to sustainable rural development.

No Government-endorsed model lease currently exists for public bodies that are seeking to create plots of land for hutting. A lease has been trialled at Carnock in south-west Fife to enable a group of hutters to build 12 huts on the national forest estate. Amendment 380 would require ministers to publish a model lease for similar hutting developments that could be used by public bodies in other areas of the country. That would support further public access to land and outdoor recreation, which—I believe—we all understand is badly needed in Scotland.