Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, January 26, 2017

Official Report 950KB pdf

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Improving Scotland’s Planning

The next item of business is a debate on motion S5M-03612, in the name of Kevin Stewart, on improving Scotland’s planning—improving Scotland’s places.

15:02  

I am pleased to be debating the planning reform agenda so early in the new year. I was delighted to publish “Places, People and Planning: A consultation on the future of the Scottish Planning System” earlier this month. The Scottish Government has made a commitment to bringing forward a planning bill in this parliamentary session. The consultation paper is an important step towards that, and I look forward to the contributions of members of the Scottish Parliament at this early stage. I encourage all members of the public and stakeholders to get involved and respond to the consultation, too.

Planning is important to all of us. It has a big influence on the places where we live, work and play. A strong and efficient planning system can play a key role in attracting investment, supporting us all to lead healthier lives and stimulating economic growth. Planning works with our environmental assets to make development sustainable. It gives people a say in decisions that affect them and can support the health and wellbeing of our communities by creating great places that make it easy to walk, cycle and play.

Our current system has a lot to offer, but there is room for improvement. I want Scotland to have a planning system that can respond to the world that we live in today and anticipate the world that we will live in tomorrow. We have developed our proposals for change to our planning system in a collaborative way. The whole process began with the appointment of an independent panel by the then Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights, Alex Neil. The panel was asked to provide recommendations for change that reflected the experiences of users of the system, and I welcomed its report when I responded to it last summer.

The panel took an objective look at the planning system, heard evidence from a wide range of people and identified how planning could be improved. Its hard work and common sense were the perfect foundation for us to work from in building a programme of change.

The independent panel did us all a great service by highlighting how the system could be improved. The recommendations were well received by people with an interest in planning, and I was struck by the high level of consensus that emerged in response to the panel’s report.

Since then, we have taken forward an intensive programme of work to explore the panel’s recommendations further. We established six working groups, which gave their time to help us to develop options and proposals for change. Crucially, the groups included people from many different backgrounds and from communities, as well as people from the public and private sectors. That allowed a healthy debate and exchange of views—as with, I have no doubt, the debate that we will have today. The working groups showed that, although people might have different perspectives, they can come together and find common ground on which shared proposals for change can be built.

Our consultation paper is the output from all that work and discussion, and it will be used as we develop the bill. Targeted research, evidence gathering and technical work will continue to be progressed to support our thinking, and that will come together with the outcomes from the consultation to help to identify the need and support for specific proposals for legislative change. I should be clear that the independent panel acknowledged that our planning system is not broken but has so much more potential. It also confirmed that, with some improvements, it can be a system that delivers great places for people across Scotland.

The review was not just about planners debating the details of an already complicated system. The independent panel reminded us that we must not forget the outcomes that we are seeking from changes to the planning system. We want continuing investment in Scotland, we want more high-quality homes to be built, we want infrastructure to support development and we all want to improve the health and quality of life of our communities.

I am confident that planning can help to deliver on those outcomes, but only if it makes things happen and if it works with and not against people. We need a planning system that understands and reflects our needs and aspirations, builds a better future for us all by supporting inclusive growth and improving Scotland’s health, and actively shapes, strengthens and grows our great places. We need a system that is systematically concerned with health and health inequality.

People seem to agree that we need strong and flexible development plans and that we can reduce complexity in the system. People support the delivery of more high-quality homes and recognise that that depends partly on proactive planning of infrastructure to ensure that things are connected and accessible. People recognise the importance of green space to our physical and mental health and to an improved quality of life.

We all recognise that decision making must be efficient and transparent so that we can build certainty and improve public trust in planning. We need planners to show leadership for the future of our built environment and to create great places where people can thrive, and we need to look at smarter resourcing of the system. Above all, I think that there is agreement that it is time to move away from conflict and towards much more positive collaboration with communities. I want planning to be something that is done with people and not to them.

The consultation paper has four key themes. We want to make plans for the future, and aligning community planning and spatial planning will help to ensure that the development plan is recognised and supported across local authorities and by partner organisations.

Planners can be a more active part of regional partnership working. We can remove procedures and reduce duplication by better co-ordinating spatial strategies in the national planning framework. The consultation paper suggests moving from a two-tier system to a single tier of local development plans that are supported, but not dictated, by national policy. Our proposals reflect the need for planning to be flexible so that it can respond to different circumstances around the country, such as the specific challenges and opportunities for island and rural communities, as well as those for the city regions.

There is scope to make local development plans more engaging and easier to use. We can replace confusing main issues reports with clear draft plans. If we remove supplementary guidance, people will be able to find out everything that they need to know from one document. Introducing an early gate check will mean that significant issues are dealt with earlier, rather than in a lengthy examination at the end of the process. Much fuller community and developer involvement and stronger delivery programmes are, in my view, crucial.

It is absolutely true that people must make the system work. I have no doubt that many members receive correspondence on planning matters from their constituents, and that makes it clear to all of us that people care about planning, even if at times they do not like the decisions that are made.

Our package of proposals aims to significantly increase the level of community involvement in the system. Development planning and early engagement are critical. We want communities to make their own plans for their own places and to involve young people more.

We are all aware that, when it comes to developments, the developer has much more power than the community—that is not just a perception but a reality. Does the minister envisage that, following the consultation, which I very much welcome, the balance of power might change somewhat?

I welcome Gil Paterson’s intervention. We need a much more collaborative approach. Wise developers already have a huge amount of consultation with local communities. In this day and age, when we see technological advances, much more use could be made of things such as 3D visualisations, so that people get a real idea of what is proposed for an area.

Of course, people’s input can lead to changes. As Mr Paterson is well aware, I was in his constituency on Tuesday, and I know that major developments are due to take place there. We hope that, in that place and in other places across Scotland, there can be more community involvement; community planning should be involved in spatial planning.

As members may have noted, we do not propose an equal right of appeal. We do not want more decisions to be made centrally, and we do not want to undermine investor confidence and create uncertainty for communities by generating more conflict at the end of the process. We are consulting on whether more review decisions should be made at a local level, to reduce appeals.

Helping to build more homes and deliver infrastructure is a crucial aspect of the consultation. We know that the number of homes that are granted planning approval each year far outstrips the number that are built, and we understand that deliverability and viability are part of the reason for that. We therefore propose that applicants or promoters of sites in a development plan should be able to provide assurances that sites are deliverable within the development plan timeframe. Planning authorities need better information to make better decisions on their plans.

We need planning authorities to move towards an active delivery role that diversifies housing provision so that we can provide greater choice. We need to support medium-sized developers and self-builders to expand capacity and we need to support alternative models of delivery in the development industry.

We can all agree that infrastructure is absolutely key to delivering the homes, businesses and places that Scotland needs. We do not believe that we need a new infrastructure agency to do that; we just need to work better together nationally and regionally. The development plan is key to better infrastructure planning.

Stronger leadership and smarter resourcing are needed. We are also consulting on a new, higher fee cap for major developments. Further thinking on fees to support a new system will be required. There is a level of consensus that a better service requires better resourcing. We need to look at how we can get the balance right, and I am clear that there must be a continuing emphasis on improving performance.

Not everything that we do will require legislation. However, if we want a great planning service, everyone—developers, communities, planning authorities, the health service and other agencies—has to be prepared to play some part. Performance is not just a matter for planning authorities; everyone can contribute by providing and requesting information when required, doing all that we can to reduce the timescales or showing leadership and focusing on outcomes.

We need to make sure that our future planners have the skills and experience to deliver great places. Planners should share their knowledge and skills by working together and connecting with communities and services that can help to deliver vibrant and healthy places to live and work in. I want stronger relationships to be forged between the public and private sectors to help to deliver a better system. As planning is, of course, a democratic process, the role of politicians in the process is vital, and the consultation paper highlights the importance of training for elected members who serve on planning committees.

The 20 proposals that are outlined in “Places, People and Planning” show that everyone has a role to play in making our planning system work better. In my time as planning minister, I have been really encouraged by people’s enthusiasm to talk about the review and by the early reaction to the consultation. I am keen to continue to hear as many comments and suggestions from as wide a range of stakeholders as possible to help to define the elements of the planning reforms that need more consideration as we take the consultation forward.

Presiding Officer, 2017 will be an important year for planning in Scotland. We want to make sure that there is a wide and open debate about the future of planning, so I am grateful to all those who will contribute to today’s debate.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises that improving Scotland’s planning process will require making the planning system more plan-led and accessible, increasing the influence of local people on decisions about the future of their communities and ensuring the delivery of the high quality homes and infrastructure that Scotland needs; agrees that, together with developing skills, smarter resourcing and digital transformation of the planning service, as well as removing any unnecessary procedures and practices that do not add value, planners can focus on delivering great places for people to live and work, and notes the publication of Places, people and planning: A consultation on the future of the Scottish planning system, which includes steps being taken to ensure that the planning system plays a proactive and positive role in attracting investment and creating great places in Scotland.

15:17  

I declare an interest as a serving councillor in South Lanarkshire. Having been a councillor in that area for nearly 10 years now, I have been involved in a number of contentious—and some less controversial—planning wrangles. None of us who have been in public life can have been untouched by the planning system and we will all have our own thoughts on it, as shaped by our own experiences.

My basic view is that, as things stand, the planning system is top down. Planning is done to people, not for them or with them; it rarely makes people happy and councillors are usually keen to run a mile from it. We therefore need to change things. I think that the Scottish Government recognises that, and there is much to be commended in the Government’s proposals that are out for consultation at the moment. As a result, we will support the Government motion.

As time does not permit a detailed examination of “Places, People and Planning”, I will say a little about what I see as its strengths and where I think there is room for improvement. Later, my colleague Jamie Greene will focus on digital connectivity and how that links into the planning system; Bill Bowman, in his maiden speech, will concentrate on how planning can deliver jobs; and Liam Kerr will have something to say on infrastructure, which is so often a sticking point.

What are the strengths of the consultation document? First, it is good that we have it. It follows on from the independent review of the planning system that was led by Crawford Beveridge and which reported last year. Both that report and the Government’s document highlight the need for longer-term thinking. They talk about simplifying the system by, for example, removing main issues reports. That makes sense to me. They also recognise the need to involve communities at the start of the process, not when it is too late. However, we must ensure that local people can have a say throughout the process, not just at the start.

Both documents suggest that Government should deal with fewer appeals. That would be a good thing, but the proposal that bigger developments be decided only by officials takes away democratic accountability and should, I believe, be revised. More discussion is required on the matter.

Appeals to Government would still happen. We think that there are issues with locally accountable politicians being overruled. I also suggest that there should be some caution around the idea of community councils being the main vehicles of consultation. As everyone here knows, community councils are often not representative of real communities.

The paper talks of council-approved community bodies preparing local place plans. What if a group of locals want to get involved and the council does not like them? What will the criteria be? Will there be funding for capacity building in areas where people are not organised?

However, the whole direction of the proposals is about where development should take place and not about where it should not. The planning proposals still feel top-down. The approach is about Government setting targets for local government to deliver, and it is not clear at all what would happen if a council were to say no. The independent panel suggested that centralised approach. It is a difficult balance to strike and I suggest that, at the very least, a change of tone is needed.

If the Government wants to set numbers—we understand why it would—it also needs to recognise that achieving its targets might be difficult when set against local needs and aspirations. As Kevin Stewart said, collaboration, not confrontation, should be the aim of the game.

There is little mention in the Government’s paper of protecting what we have and of saving green spaces. There are only two paragraphs where green spaces get a mention. That is a missed opportunity and it should be rectified. That is the point of the amendment in my name, which is lodged as a positive contribution to the process and not a negative one. I hope that Kevin Stewart will take that on board.

Green spaces within communities and green-belt land are as vital to the vibrancy of Scotland as building more homes and infrastructure—all of it is important. We would like local communities to be given the chance to identify for special protection green areas that are of particular importance to them. By designating land as local green space, communities would be able to rule out new development other than in very special circumstances. That approach is one whereby planning is done with communities, not to them.

We also need a greater focus on the green belt. Councils and communities should be encouraged to identify the land that should be protected. Having new 10-year plans would give people certainty and tell developers where they should not seek consent.

There should be alignment between the planning system and the Scottish Government’s climate change plan, the draft of which has just been published. The section on land use talks about an ambition to create more woodlands, which will absorb greenhouse gases and create jobs. People enjoy woods. They are great for health and wellbeing. They should be protected in the planning system and not seen as things to be chopped down by developers. In this week’s consensual debate on forestry and woodlands, Gillian Martin made the point that existing woodlands should be protected, and I agree with that.

There is no mention of woodlands in the planning proposals, but there is mention of the central Scotland green network—I represent part of the area that the network covers. However, as far as I am aware, the network has no power to block development or to make compulsory purchase orders, for example to create new country parks. I believe that the planning review should beef up the CSGN.

Overall, we have before us a good set of proposals. We should aim to end up with a system that delivers development—which is something that we need—in the right areas. Everyone in the chamber recognises that Scotland needs more homes. Different parties have come up with different figures on how many are needed, but we all agree on the general thrust. I think that we can achieve consensus as we go through this process.

“Places, people and planning” recognises the challenges. It suggests some ways through those challenges, such as simplified planning zones, which are something that we agree with. It talks about increasing resources for the planning system, and that is long overdue. It suggests enhancing enforcement powers, which is also long overdue, as too many people get away with ignoring the planning system. The paper recognises the difficulties in actually developing land that has planning permission, but it does not suggest that there is an easy answer, because there is not. Finally, it strongly favours city deals and growth deals as ways of delivering prosperity and jobs. Those approaches involve councils working together to bring economic growth not because they have been forced to but because they see the benefits. On that, I know that there is agreement.

The proposals are a good start. If Kevin Stewart wants to work together, we are up for that.

I move amendment S5M-03612.1, to leave out from “which includes” to end and insert:

“and urges the Scottish Government to put greater emphasis on protecting green spaces in its final proposals, noting their importance to the environment, quality of life, health and wellbeing.”

15:25  

I also welcome the consultation. Planning reform is long overdue. It will be important to try to engage as widely as possible if we are serious about engaging communities across Scotland.

Today, a number of briefings were sent to us from the Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland, Planning Aid for Scotland, Planning Democracy and the John Muir Trust. I intend to circulate those briefings. I encourage those organisations to consider how they can engage more widely with community organisations. Graham Simpson talked about community councils. The reality is that the community council is the body that is consulted, so it tends to take more interest in planning. Therefore, community councils are a good starting point for engaging in this debate before the consultation closes on 4 April.

I welcome Mr Rowley’s comments. At the early stages of the consultation, I wrote to MSPs highlighting that it was live. I would be grateful if everyone in the chamber would use their networks to contact as many folk as possible, to allow them to take part in the consultation. I am grateful for what Mr Rowley has said, because I want to see as many folk involved as possible.

On that basis, there is a lot of room to work together.

I was disappointed when I saw the minister’s motion, because the important starting point for us is to recognise where we are. Within weeks of the commission that Alex Neil put in place reporting, the first thing that the Government did was to rule out the equal right of appeal. Gil Paterson asked about the balance between developers and communities. Many communities and people who have experienced the planning process do not feel that there is equality between the two groups at this stage.

I hope that, over the coming period, we can tease out what rights communities will have. In Inverkeithing, for example, a green-belt development was recently approved not by the local authority, which refused it—that is the democratic process—but by the reporter, who overruled the council. We see far too much of that happening in many communities. We need more than warm words to empower communities.

The other reason why it is right to amend the motion is that we need to recognise the pressure that planning officials are under. The motion talks about the

“digital transformation of the planning service”.

The minister should look at the Fife planning system. From the moment that a planning application has been made, it can be tracked. If a person registers, the council will inform them of every step in the process. A lot of advances are being made. However, planning services across Scotland are under massive pressure.

The Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland has said:

“Between 2010 and 2015, around 20% of posts were lost from planning departments in Scotland. On average only 0.63% of local authority budgets were used directly for planning functions. Currently 63% of the costs of processing a planning application are recovered by the fee charged.”

As the consultation says, we need to look at whether we should go further to recoup those costs. However, one of the biggest pressures—this makes it slower for planning authorities to deal with applications—is that budgets have been cut year in, year out and, consequently, the number of planners has gone down. However, it is not just about the numbers, because the expertise in the planning system is also lost. We need to address that, not gloss over it. That is why I lodged the amendment and why I do not support the motion.

I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities regarding the planning review and raised the concern about the equal right of appeal. In that letter, I highlighted the point that few people would disagree with the Government’s intention of strengthening the planning system to ensure that it better serves communities throughout Scotland. I also highlighted community planning to her. We need to tease that out and think about how we can better join it up because it is one way that local communities can have a far greater say by setting out their priorities. We need to think about how that happens.

On resources going into communities where major developments are taking place, it is important that we do not consider only physical resources, as important as they are. I refer to the concerns that the Royal College of General Practitioners expressed about general practitioners’ surgeries. The RCGP’s chairman, Dr Miles Mack, said:

“Any attempts to tackle Scotland’s insufficient housing supply must consider the impact upon local general practices, many of which are struggling to survive while serving the size of communities they are already responsible for.”

The key point is that we must engage communities so that, when housing developments take place, we ensure not only that the infrastructure—the surgeries, hospitals and schools—is in place but that the services can be provided. Community planning can deliver a lot of that.

As Graham Simpson and the minister said, there is a lot in the consultation paper. Although we do not support the motion, we support the review that is taking place and urge ministers and every MSP to take the issue into communities and get the discussion going so that we can build a better planning system that can deliver the infrastructure, housing and jobs that we need in partnership with communities rather than to communities.

I move amendment S5M-03612.4, to leave out from “recognises” to end and insert:

“believes that the central purpose of the planning system is to regulate the use of land in the public interest; values transparency, efficiency and openness in all aspects of the system and welcomes steps to improve the experience of all interested parties, including applicants, developers and communities; notes the publication of Places, people and planning – a consultation on the future of the Scottish planning system, which includes steps being taken to ensure that the planning system plays a proactive and positive role in attracting investment and creating great places and homes in which to live in Scotland; believes that the operation of the statutory planning system has been undermined by cuts to local government; recognises concerns about the barriers facing individuals and communities to fully engage in the planning process, despite a shift towards frontloading, and notes their limited rights to challenge decisions, and believes that reforming the system is an opportunity to put communities and people at the heart of decision-making and that the proposed planning bill presents an opportunity to help tackle inequality and improve public health.”

We move to the open debate. I have a little time in hand, but I ask the usual suspects not take advantage of that. Speeches will be of up to six minutes.

15:32  

The effectiveness of our planning system affects aspects of all our lives: it affects the quality of our environments and the sustainability of our communities; it influences local services and opportunities; and it helps to determine how we feel as individuals when we leave our homes, walk out the door and embrace the day ahead of us.

Planning, as the title of the consultation suggests, is about places, place making and, most importantly, people. Whether it be the places where we live, where we work or that we visit, planning and places have a real impact on all our lives.

As the constituency MSP for the most densely populated part of Scotland, I will focus my remarks on matters that affect our urban environments. As a representative for Edinburgh, I warmly welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to change the planning system because, in this city—our capital city—there is considerable dissatisfaction with the status quo.

I welcome the ambition of the consultation to change the planning system so that it can play a more active role in making development happen and—crucially—happen in the right places. I fully endorse the Scottish Government’s determination to improve community engagement. There is much that I could say on planning and in relation to my constituency, but I will focus on three aspects of the consultation: building more homes; infrastructure investment and related considerations; and giving local people a more effective voice in the system.

First, on building more homes, in the north of Edinburgh there is significant capacity to develop unused and underused land for our growing capital city. I welcome the possibility that the consultation provides of accelerating development in areas such as north Edinburgh, where development has been stalled since the financial crisis of 2008. I look forward to new legislation helping us to realise development in the waterfront area, where there is huge potential, and in other parts of Scotland so that we can deliver on the ambitious and important target of providing 50,000 affordable homes in the course of the current parliamentary session.

In addition to the measures in the consultation, I wonder whether greater consideration can be given to using the planning system to make it easier for unused land to be utilised now and in the short term while it is awaiting full development. We could use innovative solutions by means of temporary installations or so-called “interwhile” solutions, which could include measures to utilise shipping container models, or other potential solutions such as the NestHouse model, which, when it is installed, will be used in my constituency in the proposed Social Bite village in Granton to help to address homelessness.

Secondly, I welcome the proposals in the consultation to introduce powers for a new local levy to raise additional finance for infrastructure and to make improvements to section 75 obligations. That will make a meaningful difference. Others have raised the point about GP practices, but I would like to raise another other point. North Edinburgh Childcare, which is a remarkable organisation in my constituency, recently emphasised to me the need to give greater consideration to the capacity of childcare provision in a geographical area when it comes to planning. North Edinburgh Childcare will respond to the consultation, and I look forward to the Scottish Government considering that organisation’s ideas, particularly given the Government’s strong commitment to significantly increase the availability of childcare.

Thirdly, I warmly welcome the consultation’s ambition to give local people a more effective voice in the system, to involve them at an early stage and to examine how statutory requirements can be improved accordingly to encourage early engagement.

Over recent years in my constituency, there have been several planning decisions that have been overwhelmingly against the wishes of the affected local communities. In general, those decisions have related to small-scale development plans that were believed to be out of kilter with the make-up of the respective areas, and local people have campaigned hard against such development plans. Whether we are talking about the save Canonmills bridge campaign, the save Heriot hill campaign, the concerns about development at 127 Trinity Road or other local campaigns, many local groups in my constituency feel that their voice has not been heard in the current system, so I sincerely welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to bring about change and to listen to communities.

The consultation proposes to give people an opportunity to design their own places. I warmly welcome that approach and have seen how it can make a difference in Newhaven and Broughton, where co-designers and consultants such as HERE+NOW, based in Edinburgh, have worked with local organisations to deliver meaningful projects.

I also welcome the intention in the consultation to invest in community planning, and I particularly look forward to seeing the results of the Scottish Government-funded charrette to look at planning and social issues in Leith that will be delivered by the local organisations Citizen Curator and Leith Creative.

Lastly, I welcome the consultation’s proposal to involve community councils. I have seen how that has made a difference when it has happened at an early stage in the process, particularly with big developments. Communities and developers have been able to engage in good faith.

On keeping decisions local, there is an issue about rights of appeal. In the consultation, the issue of a third-party right of appeal is addressed and ruled out in the case of a local authority decision in favour of a developer. I agree with that. On the other hand, however, the consultation does not refer directly to the situation that arises when a local authority and local councillors refuse planning permission, but development is subsequently permitted by appeal. That has happened in my constituency and the decisions of local elected members have been undermined. I believe that that imbalance is problematic and should be thoroughly considered.

I emphasise that I warmly welcome the consultation. Through improved building standards and planning, and through the creativity of Scotland’s architects and communities, we can do more to enhance the places that we live in and the spaces that we share. I look forward to the positive change ahead.

15:39  

I am honoured to have joined the Parliament as a list member for the North East Scotland region. However—it is a big however—I am sure that we all wish that the event that led to my becoming a member had not happened. I pay tribute to the late Alex Johnstone, who served his constituents so well after becoming a member of the Scottish Parliament. [Applause.] There are many here who knew him for longer and better than I did but, in the time that I knew him, he was supportive, encouraging and always approachable. I hope that I can be like that, too.

Now, about me. I was born in Glasgow. When I was 11, my family moved east—from a Glasgow perspective, it seemed a long way east—to Kirkcaldy in Fife, where I lived while a teenager and growing up.

On graduating from the University of Edinburgh, I studied to become a chartered accountant and, having passed my exams, I became a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, which I regarded then and regard now as the gold standard of chartered accountancy institutes.

I joined KPMG, and I spent five years with it in Edinburgh. Then, I moved to its Aberdeen office, where I spent the next 20 years. I learned a lot about the north-east region there. I audited and advised companies and organisations in many industries, such as the oil and gas industry, naturally, and the farming, fishing, food processing, engineering, transport, shipping and hospitality industries. That was not just in Aberdeen, but throughout the region.

After 20 years there, I moved east again, but a little bit further this time. I went to Romania, where I continued my professional activities with KPMG for the next 10 years, with a focus on helping companies to grow and develop their accounting and reporting, as well as training and developing the generation of auditors and accountants who were required to meet that emerging country’s growing need for such people. That was the most rewarding part of the work.

I then came back to Scotland and entered front-line politics. I had the time, desire and opportunity and—thanks to listening to Ruth Davidson at one of our Scottish conferences—I decided to stand in the 2015 Westminster election in the Dundee East constituency. Having of course not succeeded in that, in 2016 I stood in the Scottish Parliament election in the Dundee City East constituency.

Dundee and the adjoining Angus area have a long and illustrious history. They have world-class educational institutions and the Dundee waterfront development is showing how to prepare today for the future needs of a city. The V&A building will be an iconic symbol that will be recognised far and wide, and people will think of Dundee when they see it.

Perhaps the waterfront development is an example of how planning can bring together the regeneration of an area that had fulfilled its original use and had no immediate other use with commercial and retail developments, and arts and culture, through the V&A and related projects. The ultimate measure of the waterfront’s success will be the wealth and jobs that it creates in the area. I hope that it will yield a social dividend for constituents in the area, who need and deserve that.

Such a social dividend should be at the heart of our planning system. Planning and the developments that flow from our planning system, such as the construction of new schools, leisure facilities and housing developments stimulate economies in the local area and the jobs that are created in that process mean that more people can go home satisfied that they are able to provide for themselves, their families and dependants after a hard and honest day’s work. I am sure that all members agree that there is no better feeling than that.

North East Scotland is as diverse a region as it is big, from the Banff and Buchan coast in the north through to Angus and Dundee in the south and all the places in between. I look forward to representing the people of that vast area in the chamber to the best of my ability.

One thing that I have learned from the debates that I have attended is that it is best for members to keep within their time—members do not usually get a telling off for that—so, with that, I will draw my speech to a conclusion. I thank members for listening. [Applause.]

Thank you, Mr Bowman. I hope that all your colleagues and mine will take note of your closing sentences.

15:45  

I congratulate Mr Bowman on his first speech. Obviously, it comes on the back of circumstances that none of us desired, but it was good to hear from him for the first time. That will probably be the last time that I will be extremely nice to Mr Bowman in the chamber.

If I had been asked 10 years ago, before I became a councillor, whether I would ever desperately want to speak in a debate on planning, I would have said, “You’re having a laugh.” However, the longer I worked in my council ward and the more I have worked in Paisley in its entirety, the more I have found that planning is one of the major issues. I agree with the minister that the planning system is not broken, but it can be, and do, so much better.

I want to bring up some local issues and challenges for me. My problem, which is both good and extremely challenging, is that the great town of Paisley has more listed buildings than any other place in Scotland, other than our nation’s capital. Many people are shocked when they hear that, because when they think about Paisley they have a vision of post-industrial decline and not of the vibrant and exciting town that I know and love. The advantage is that, as we move towards the summer announcement of the UK city of culture 2021, our historic buildings will play an important part in any success with our bid for that. The challenge is that many of those historic buildings are now empty and, in some cases, they are slowly but surely rotting away. My constituents are angry that it appears that nothing can be done regarding those historic sites.

We have listed buildings such as the old Paisley territorial army hall, which has lain empty for years. A developer currently owns the building and there has been planning permission for flats for some time, but regeneration never seems to happen, as the developer sits on it and waits for sunnier economic times. There is also the old Royal Alexandra infirmary. The front half of the building has been redeveloped but, because of various on-going problems, the rear of the building is rotting away. The owner is a London-based developer who has probably never seen Paisley and would not be able to point to it on a map. The building is regularly broken into by young people and others, and there is serious antisocial behaviour on occasions—for example, fires have been started. All of that is happening as families live next door. They have to live with that on-going issue.

Renfrewshire Council has no intention of enforcing any of the legislation that is available to it for fear of ending up with responsibility for the building. Rather than try to find alternative solutions, it just leaves the building as it is. There is legislation available, but no one appears to want to take responsibility. The minister is correct that everyone who is involved in the process needs to show leadership, but some of our communities feel that there is no help. There is an issue with listed buildings and the planning process. Historic Environment Scotland does its job and desperately tries to save buildings, but councils tend to run away from the responsibilities. There needs to be more input from local communities so that they feel that they are being listened to and that things can change.

I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government wants the planning system to increase the delivery of high-quality housing developments through a quicker, more accessible and efficient process. That would be helpful, but my problem is that developers and local authorities would prefer to build on greenbelt land or build new schools and further infrastructure rather than to look at alternative options. Planners and developers would rather move people out of our towns and cities and build on what they deem to be easier sites.

Brownfield sites in certain towns are too difficult and risky for developers, but when brownfield sites are in leafy suburbs or certain cities, people spend years pushing plans through the system, no matter how difficult it is to do that.

We need a system that makes it easier to develop and regenerate our towns and cities. We need a can-do attitude that pushes planners away from their risk-averse ways. I am not saying that we should be reckless; I am saying that we need to rise to the challenge and create the flexibility in the system that will help to redevelop our communities. We do not need a system that is patchy, at best.

I therefore welcome the fact that the Scottish Government wants Scotland’s planning system to lead and inspire change by making clear plans for the future. To achieve that, we can simplify and strengthen development planning, by aligning community planning and spatial planning and by introducing a requirement for development plans to take account of the wider community, so that local people get the opportunity to ensure that the planning system delivers what they want.

As I said, what I want is development of our town centre. That is what the public wants for the historic buildings that I mentioned. I could mention more buildings, such as the old fire station, across from my constituency office, which has not been occupied in my lifetime—and that did not begin yesterday, Presiding Officer.

Our approach should ensure that communities have a new right to come together to prepare local plans, so that they have the opportunity to plan their own places. Such plans should form part of the statutory local development plan—that is important. Such an approach will empower people and ensure that they can move towards getting what they want for their communities. It can and should change the imbalance in the current system.

The Scottish Government proposes to discourage repeat applications and improve planning enforcement. Now we are talking. Improving enforcement would help in many of the cases that I have experienced.

As I said, how we deal with historic buildings is extremely important to me. The world-famous Thomas Coats memorial church is in the west end of Paisley. It is a massive building and it is regarded as the Baptist cathedral of Europe—if the Baptist church has that type of structure. It has been part of the Paisley skyline for more than 100 years. Built in the Gothic revival style in red sandstone, it has a striking crowned steeple that is 200ft from the ground, and it seats 1,000 people—

And there you must conclude, Mr Adam, with seating for 1,000 people. You are out of time.

15:52  

I refer to my entry in the register of members’ interests: I am a proud member of the Royal Town Planning Institute. As a chartered town planner, I am sure that members will believe me when I say that I approach this debate with great enthusiasm—although George Adam has given me a run for my money in that regard. I should also say, for the record, that I am a serving councillor in South Lanarkshire Council.

Where we live and our surroundings can determine how happy we are, how much we earn and how long we live. The built and natural environment around us shapes our daily experiences, as Ben Macpherson said, provides the setting for economic activity, influences how we interact with other people and, as I was pleased to hear Kevin Stewart say, has a very real impact on our health and wellbeing.

Because of that, decisions about the use of land and buildings and the green spaces and transport corridors in between should always be guided by what is in the public interest—a principle that is stated in the Labour amendment.

The planning system was created out of a vision of and commitment to a healthier and more equal society. Patrick Geddes, born in Aberdeenshire in 1854, is regarded as the pioneer of modern town planning. Geddes championed a mode of planning that was concerned with primary human needs. He believed that to understand and improve a community, one had to be a part of it. We can still learn from his teachings and principles.

Other pioneers of planning, such as Sir Ebenezer Howard, who founded the Town and Country Planning Association in 1899, held utopian and progressive ideas. They saw planning as being concerned with all aspects of human behaviour, from art and culture to education and the nature of work. They recognised the intrinsic value of beauty in design and the natural environment to people’s health and wellbeing. The approach transformed the way in which society thought about and built places.

The development of new settlements in the interwar period led to a transformation in housing standards and sparked a worldwide interest in town planning; but it is safe to say that if we fast-forward, from the 1980s town planning became unfashionable.

Some members might be familiar with Michael Heseltine’s infamous quote:

“There are countless jobs tied up in the filing cabinets of the planning regime.”

My concern about our approach to today’s debate is that we seem to be accepting that the housing crisis that we face around the country is somehow due to plans for the homes that we need being locked up in planners’ inboxes. Despite the tone of some of what I have heard today, I hope that that is not the case. When I think of the great places that we have in Scotland and of the professionalism of the planners here, I hope that the Government will reject the characterisation that Michael Heseltine espoused.

Housing is a major concern for us all. In 2014 and 2015, a number of major reports on housing in Scotland were published: the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors published its report “Building a Better Scotland” in 2014; the commission for housing and wellbeing that was set up by Shelter Scotland reported in 2015; and the Scottish Government published the “Joint Housing Delivery Plan for Scotland” that same year.

RICS set out a number of recommendations, which are not all about the planning system. It recommended that a Scottish housing observatory be established; that the

“post of Housing Minister is elevated to a Cabinet Secretary position”

—that could be a promotion for our esteemed colleague, Kevin Stewart; and that

“the Scottish Government, in partnership with planning authorities, undertakes a review to assess the nature of existing planning consents in Scotland.”

I do not know whether the minister wants to address those points now, but we would like to hear about that in his closing speech.

We have talked a bit today about collaboration and equity. Ben Macpherson spoke about third-party rights of appeal, and we have to change that language. The community and the people who live in an area are in no way third parties; they should be front and centre, and it is unfortunate that that has been dismissed out of hand. We should all look at that, because however much we want to believe that front loading is the answer, it has not achieved the level of confidence that we need.

Like many members, I know of planning applications in which people in my community have got involved who, afterwards, felt deflated and the worse for doing so. Kevin Stewart knows about the incinerator in my council ward. An appeal went to the Scottish Government and sat for 12 months, after which the only recourse for the community would have been a judicial review, the legal bar for which is very high and which would have cost in the region of £30,000 to £50,000—so the community is priced out of doing it.

I have only 30 seconds remaining—Ben Macpherson took all the extra time and good will—but I hope that the Labour amendment will be taken in good faith. We believe that health and the reduction of inequality are at the heart of the planning system. The place standard toolkit that is being promoted is a great idea, but it has no statutory footing. We would like a shift towards putting health and equality on a level playing field with the environmental impact and the way in which that is assessed.

We need to keep a door open to looking at how communities can be involved. I pay tribute to the representatives of Planning Democracy and other organisations who are in the public gallery. They are giving up their time to be here today and they support communities day in day out. We have to keep an open mind on community involvement.

Thank you, Miss Lennon. You have the privilege of having complimented and promoted Mr Stewart and of having made Mr Macpherson blush.

15:58  

One of our easiest functions as MSPs is to highlight the challenges and grievances in our constituencies, and that always seems quite easy for the Highlands. It is much harder—and a much greater responsibility—to identify intelligent solutions; and there is seldom a black-and-white, cut-and-paste answer.

When I first stood as a candidate for election, a seasoned politician had one piece of advice for me: steer clear of planning. I hope that they are not watching this speech.

Planning is but a means to an end, and that end should be high-quality homes and infrastructure and sustainable communities and futures. However, more often than not, the end is frustration and costs—costs, which are often unnecessary, in time, money and labour. The Government’s motion sums that up as

“unnecessary procedures and practices that do not add value”.

I will give members a home-grown example. At the end of last year, Cairngorms National Park Authority finally approved an application for a housing development at the old sawmill site in Rothiemurcus. It had taken five years. The common theme at the final meeting, when planning consent was granted, was why?—why did it take five years of four local young couples and their families jumping through the hoops, forking out the cash and spending their spare time to get planning permission? The greatest irony of all is that it was on a brownfield site. Forty years ago, a commercial sawmill occupied the site and then it was a dump, before nature took over. In the vast majority of conversations and correspondence, there was a general consensus that the situation was, in a word, ridiculous. In the end, though, we have four young couples who are committed to the local community, who will raise their children there and support the local school, and who will work and make an income to plough back into the local community. That is the end that I want to see throughout the Highlands. Planning is but the means—or the obstacle—to that end.

I have said before in the chamber—and I will say again—that, in the Highlands, the price of housing is higher than the Scottish average, while income levels are below the Scottish average. Let me provide some figures. In 2009, the median gross weekly pay for all employees in the Highlands was 91 per cent of the overall Scottish figure. In my constituency, the median house price was 8 per cent higher and increases in house prices in the three years to 2008 were significantly higher than the Scottish average. As I have also said in the past, I believe that that is partly due to concentrated landownership patterns. Today, though, I will go further and argue that, since the 1970s at least, planning law and policy and their application have restricted the development of rural areas. This week, I spoke to a land surveyor who went even further: he said that, in the past 40 years, the now long-held restrictions in local authority policies to planning consent outside designated settlement areas has, almost single-handedly, driven the dramatic increase in property values in the Highlands.

So what is the solution? Don’t get me wrong—I am a country girl who loves the beautiful scenery of the Highlands, and I have the best of it in my constituency. Historically, housing was based on land topography, and the distribution of communities could be widespread—crofting communities often still are.

So what do we need? First, wisdom is required in relation to what and how we build. Building standards need to be adapted to rural areas such as the Highlands. Expert advice is also required. While I have, in the past, strongly disagreed with Scottish Natural Heritage on its verdict on the housing development in Staffin, I recognise its advisory role on Scotland’s natural heritage. In fact, I have been quite impressed with the changes that SNH has made to its engagement with the planning process, to the extent that, since 2014, the number of its responses to planning applications has fallen from more than 1,500 to more than 500; in the same period, its outright objections have halved to five. That is praise where praise is due—though I still hope that the housing development in Staffin gets the go-ahead by those tasked with the responsibility for that.

Lastly, we require a cheaper process, with up-front costings and guidance; smarter use of digital resources—I welcome the comment on that in the Government motion; and an attitude that sees challenges as something to be overcome not beaten by.

All of those are steps in a process that is primarily concerned with listening to all members of the community—and I emphasise all members: those who are vocal and organised and those who are not. It should be a process that allows for objections and fair appeals and does not keep on overruling communities.

Today we are discussing the means, but I want to leave members with the end: rural communities that live and work and learn and play in Highland places that are beautiful, affordable and alive.

16:04  

I congratulate Bill Bowman on giving his first speech in the chamber and welcome him to Parliament.

I welcome this debate on planning, a subject that is often regarded as dry and technical but which—as a number of speakers have already made clear—plays a vital role in allocating land, balancing competing demands, providing public infrastructure, protecting the environment and mitigating climate change. Indeed, we think that the planning bill should incorporate such aims, in particular on climate change, as key purposes of planning.

At the third reading of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, Lewis Silkin, Attlee’s Minister of Town and Country Planning, noted that

“planning is concerned to secure that our limited land resources are used to the best advantage of the nation as a whole, and it provides for resolving the often conflicting claims upon any particular piece of land.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 20 May 1947; Vol 437, c 2196.]

Much has changed since 1947, but Silkin’s observation remains as valid today as it was 70 years ago. Among the complaints and frustrations of the current planning system is the fact that the original vision of a plan-led system has ended up becoming stressed to the point of failure, in many cases, by the vested interests of developers.

Alex Rowley has already mentioned the Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland briefing, which makes it clear that between 2010 and 2015, 20 per cent of planning posts were lost and that the budget for planning is now covered substantially by fees.

In the welcome move towards better up-front planning, resources need to be allocated from general taxation to provide the skills and the time that are necessary to plan the high-quality environments that will improve the quality of people’s lives—an investment that the former chief medical officer for Scotland, Sir Harry Burns, frequently stressed was critical and would amply repay itself in improved health outcomes.

Nowhere is that more relevant than in the challenge of housing Scotland’s population in affordable, warm, long-lasting and sustainable homes. The current system of delivery of housing is dysfunctional and unsustainable in the private sector. To create affordable and high-quality housing for all, we need to radically transform how we plan places. In our view, that starts right at the beginning of the construction process.

Put simply, the hegemony of the speculative, volume house-building industry has failed—it carries too much risk, it fails to respond to the challenge of creating high-quality places, and its lobbying power has corrupted the planning process right across Scotland. In our view, it has no future.

The Greens want a return to a public-led development planning process in which communities are in charge, master-planning is detailed and comprehensive and those who wish to invest in new development appear at the end of the process. We want to end, for example, the call for sites element of planning, which hands all the initiative to landowners and commercial interests, putting communities on the back foot and obliging them to act defensively. We welcome the emphasis on up-front planning, zoning and local place plans, as long as they give communities a stronger voice and guarantee that they will be full participants.

Our amendment, which was not selected today, focused on two vital reforms that we believe could transform the planning system. The first is a return to the roots of planning, in section 48 of the 1947 act, to allow public authorities to acquire land at its existing use value. That measure was in line with the recommendations of the Uthwatt committee on compensation and betterment, which met during the war and led to the 1947 act.

Three observations were often made of the Uthwatt committee’s report—there were those who agreed with it; there were those who disagreed with it; and, finally, there were those who had actually read it. The provision was repealed in 1959 but retained for the development of new towns. We propose its reintroduction.

To understand the concept, it was precisely the means by which Edinburgh new town was constructed. Land was acquired by the common good fund; master-planning was undertaken; and individual plots were sold for self-build or to developers under contract to town councils.

Put simply, planning consents increase the value of land a hundredfold or more. That value belongs to society as a whole, but today that value is captured by landowners. Ending that windfall would mean that houses could be built for two thirds of current prices and the balance invested in higher-quality and/or more homes.

The second reform is to the system of appeals. The Greens support a third-party right of appeal in order to equalise the power relationship in the planning process. Consultation on the review noted widespread calls for an equal right of appeal, but the proposal was rejected by the review and by the Government. I commend Planning Democracy’s continuing campaign for a stronger public voice in the planning system.

I have been discussing the matter with a wide range of interests over the past few months and I am aware of an alternative way forward that would equalise appeal rights, which is simply to abolish completely the existing right of appeal on behalf of applicants. The very existence of any right of appeal is an anachronism and a hangover from the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1947, as was recently noted in evidence to the Local Government and Communities Committee, when John McNairney, the chief planner for the Scottish Government, said:

“The 1947 situation is essentially that the landowner was no longer free to dispose of his property as he saw fit; he had to seek permission. That is the context for being able to appeal against the decision that he was aggrieved about.”—[Official Report, Local Government and Communities Committee, 7 September 2016; c 45.]

The right to appeal was a concession to landowners as a result of their development rights being nationalised. However, it will be 70 years this August since the act became law, and there is no longer any principled justification for such a right of appeal; many European countries do not operate any such appeals process. I commend that suggestion to Parliament.

Greens look forward to constructive engagement on the topic of planning in the months ahead, and we recognise that planning plays a critical role in building, developing and sustaining communities throughout Scotland. We commend the motion and all the amendments, and we will support them at decision time.

16:11  

I extend a welcome to Bill Bowman and congratulate him on making an excellent first speech. He does so in this Parliament in our nation’s capital, which is a great microcosm of all that is good and all that is bad about planning in this country.

My constituency of Edinburgh Western is a thriving and diverse community and, like the rest of the city, it is growing year on year. Every year, Edinburgh gets 5,000 new people, and demand for housing is vastly outstripping supply. Edinburgh has a housing shortage—a housing crisis—but in my constituency, we have a development problem. Development is happening incrementally, and dormitory developments are being thrown up to feed into the city, particularly on the outskirts in communities such as Kirkliston and South Queensferry. Those are wonderful villages and towns, but already they are not, in and of themselves, sustained by adequate infrastructure in and of themselves. They lack affordable direct public transport links to the city, despite paying Edinburgh council tax rates, and they are not served by adequate superfast broadband. There are many other strains on those communities.

Anger and tension over development have been generated nowhere more than in and around the Cammo estate on the fringes of the Maybury bypass. The estate is one of the most beautiful sites of natural heritage on the eastern seaboard. For many years, developers have sought to develop on it, and people have rightly and successfully campaigned against it. However, we have now reached an impasse in which, very sadly, Cammo is now zoned for development as part of the local development plan. That outcome is the result of something of a betrayal of trust, which has left the local community reeling.

Last year, a capital coalition motion suggested that unwanted housing in that area could be jettisoned from the local development plan if the planners accepted the Gyle garden city in the development plan, against the advice of officials. However, because of the delay from the Scottish Government and dubiety about both the plans, they were both included and both areas will now be built on.

Building on the Cammo estate will lead to a massive loss of green belt, and to gridlock at Barnton on the fringes of the A90, which is one of the most polluted roads in Scotland. The garden city development would fall in the footprint of the Ladywell medical practice, which is already at capacity and which would, with an extra 4,000 patients, need to close its lists.

The Minister for Local Government and Housing rightly issued the City of Edinburgh Council with a stinging rebuke of the way in which it handled the local development plan, but all the developments that I have mentioned were taken through without a coherent strategy for infrastructure, roads or health centres, thereby compounding the problems that I have described.

Liberal Democrats are not ideologically opposed to new housing; I have articulated our city’s distinct need for it. We are simply opposed to unintelligent housing development—the development by increment that I have described. Those developments are now, more than ever, driven by developers’ business models rather than by the needs of the communities that they seek to serve. Indeed, the environment for development has changed; developers are far more likely to build detached and terraced houses and to sell the units as they go along, because that is how they sustain their business model. However, that approach has three particular drawbacks: it burns through the green belt; it creates properties of higher value, which means that even affordable properties in the area are still outwith the range of first-time buyers; and it encourages early occupancy of unfinished developments before the amenities for it are constructed, which exerts further pressure on existing infrastructure and amenities.

I am intrigued by Alex Cole-Hamilton’s comments about incremental development. Does he imagine that if the Liberal Democrats had been running Edinburgh council in the late 18th century, they would have supported the development of Edinburgh’s new town?

He is taking you back a bit, Mr Cole-Hamilton, but there you are.

By “development by increment”, I mean unintelligent housing development such as I have referred to, in which things are just thrown up on pieces of land that become available at a point in time when developers are hungry to prosecute development.

With regard to the Brighouse Park development in Cramond, for example, the Cramond campus had lain fallow but held the promise of a new sports pavilion and playing fields. However, the developer felt that that was no longer a cash-viable business proposition, so it has pulled out, against its section 75 obligations.

The point about first-time buyers is particularly important in Edinburgh because of the deteriorating housing stock that we have in flatted developments, which are the most common properties for first-time buyers to occupy. I am sure that many members will have met, as I have, the Property Managers Association Scotland, which paints a terrifying picture of the extent of housing dilapidation.

Where have we come to in all this? I think that the Scottish Government has got something right in that it is looking at use of planning gain and section 75 orders. On matters such as dilapidation, we should compel developers, as a condition of their taking on a new project, to replace a certain number of dilapidated roofs on existing tenement buildings, for example, or to build infrastructure of roads, health centres and so on. I was gratified that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport wrote to me after one of our exchanges in the chamber about the infrastructure issue, which I have raised many times. She said in her letter:

“I agree with you that we need appropriate Primary Care infrastructure in new housing developments”.

I very much welcome the Government’s direction of travel—especially the infrastructure-first approach of the independent planning review committee. The Liberal Democrats will work closely with the Scottish Government on that and related issues—in particular, on shifting the power of final decision making in planning away from Scottish ministers and back to local government, except where perverse decisions are taken. The motion is very much a start towards that end, and the amendments add something to it, so we will support the motion and the amendments at decision time.

16:17  

I, too, congratulate Bill Bowman on his maiden speech,

Edinburgh is one of the UK’s economic hotspots. As a result of that, the city’s population has grown from 447,000 in 2002 to 499,000 in 2015—an 11 per cent increase over that period. In recent years, population growth has accelerated and the city now attracts just over 100 new residents every week. The results are lack of affordable homes, private rents increasing faster than inflation and pressure on the green belt as developers submit speculative plans for arable land around Edinburgh. Much of that speculation is taking place because the local development plan is overdue. Although I agree that LDPs should have a life of 10 years as opposed to five, we need to ensure that delays do not occur in future years when the LDP is being updated and refreshed.

Regarding the availability of land for housing, we cannot continue to push Edinburgh’s boundaries, because in doing so we will destroy the very reasons that make Edinburgh an attractive place in which to live and work. We must find ways to encourage developers to build more homes that are easy to commute from into Edinburgh—and not by car, because the road network in the west of the city grinds to a halt at peak times, but by taking advantage of on-going improvements in the railway infrastructure.

There also has to be a way to encourage use of brownfield sites first, whether they are urban gap sites, areas that are zoned for a purpose but not yet developed, or areas that are being held for land banking and speculation. The “Scottish Derelict and Vacant Land Survey” highlighted that Edinburgh has 82 sites totalling 183 hectares, with constrained sites in the city being able to provide more than 7,000 new homes, if they were to become available.

I welcome the suggestion that there should be a new local levy, but is not it time to consider introducing a general land tax on development land and vacant and derelict land in order to reduce land banking and increase the supply of land for homes?

The City of Edinburgh Council has worked successfully with neighbouring councils to meet the increasing housing demand. However, as the Royal Town Planning Institute for Scotland asks in its briefing, if the requirement for strategic development plans is removed from the planning process, how will the Government ensure that local authorities work together to decide where national housing needs will be met?

The consultation on Scotland’s planning system needs to address the concerns of local communities. Community councils have a formal role in the planning process and are consulted on development plans, on pre-application consultations and when a planning application has been submitted, but they have little or no funding to assist them to carry out that duty. The Scottish Government is considering increasing

“planning fees to ensure the planning service is better resourced”.

Can some of that additional revenue be given to community councils so that they are better resourced? That additional funding would support communities

“to create their own ‘local place plans’ and for these plans to be used as a framework for development within local development plans.”

That would help to ensure that all communities have the resources to produce a full plan, which should become a statutory part of the local development plan.

I also welcome the proposal to discourage repeat applications. In the communities that I represent, from Balerno to Winton, house builders have appealed all the way to the Scottish Government reporter and had their plans thrown out, yet what seems to be only a few months later, communities have been back considering similar plans for the same site. In order to put a stop to repeat applications, the communities that I represent need three things. The first is an escalation in planning fees, for anything other than minor developments, for subsequent proposals, regardless of the developer or house builder. Secondly, all points that have been made in previous rejections must be addressed regardless of the company or person who makes the new application. Thirdly, if an application for a site has been to appeal and has been rejected by the reporter, there should be a moratorium to provide respite for the community for up to 10 years.

Another area of interest is the opportunity to make improvements to section 75 obligations that are connected to planning permission applications. They can include financial contributions to schools, roads, transport and affordable housing. We rightly ask developers to contribute to school extensions because of the impact of their developments. As Alex Rowley asked, why do we not ask for contributions to primary health care, given that new developments have a similar impact on those local services?

Regarding a third-party right of appeal, it cannot be right that a developer can appeal a refused decision but a community cannot appeal a granted decision. I realise that the Government wants to remove bureaucracy. As Andy Wightman said, Planning Aid for Scotland says in its briefing that many successful European countries do not operate an appeal process at all—that is, there is no right of appeal for any party. It suggests that that would encourage us to get things right at the start, which would lead to discussion and debate about the kind of places that we need and want.

The consultation states:

“People are at the heart of our proposals for reform. Everyone should have an opportunity to get involved in planning.”

As the minister said in his opening speech, we should encourage everyone to take part in the consultation before it closes on 4 April.

I call Jamie Greene, to be followed Bob Doris. Mr Doris will be the last speaker in the open debate. You have been warned.

16:24  

I start by welcoming Bill Bowman to Parliament. Despite the sad circumstances in which he does so, I am sure that he brings a lot of experience. I also reiterate his point about the development of waterfronts. In his speech, he talked about Dundee, but I have seen in my area the benefits that redevelopment of Greenock waterfront has had on the local community. It now provides opportunities for retail and the arts, as well as new jobs and businesses, so development works when it is done properly.

I would like to cover three areas that I think are the three essential ingredients of sustainable planning: reliable information, community participation and connectivity. Let us start with reliable information. Planning requires foresight and foresight requires data. As far back as 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development recognised the importance of using technology and consultation in sustainable development. I am sure that in those days there were not many BBC computers lying around the local library, and they could not produce 3D models of the quality that we use today.

Consultation is nothing new. It has always been an integral part of the planning process, but the way in which consultation takes place has changed greatly and can still change. The Scottish Government’s research report shows that there is huge potential for use of digital imagery and 3D visualisation to aid the planning process. In order to benefit from those opportunities, we need access to data and tools. There will be a discussion about who owns the data, who has the right to access it and how we should present it. For example, we do not want to stifle entrepreneurial companies that have great ideas about how to connect rural areas to alternative high-speed internet, but cannot do so because datasets on infrastructure are incomplete, inaccessible or owned by someone else, and nor do we want to transpose the inefficiencies of a paper-based plan to an inefficient digital one. We do not necessarily need to go to a library to see a model anymore: virtual reality on a mobile phone, or easy-to-read and easy-to-search papers online can make consultation more accessible.

Good planning decisions must be based on evidence and take into account a number of social, historical, cultural and environmental factors. No one aspect is more important than another. The needs of a developer to run a profitable business are important, but the needs of an environmental group, a local community council, local businesses, existing residents, wildlife groups, road safety groups and so on are equally important. How does one layer on those external factors when looking at a model of a building or a housing scheme?

That leads me to community participation. A criticism of the current system is the extent to which planning appeals can, and do, overturn community-supported decisions. Many people perceive there to be an inherent bias and unfairness in the planning system and feel that it favours development and developers, as Gil Paterson mentioned. There is also the question of how children and young people are represented, in order to ensure that their needs are at the heart of all our planning decisions. We are planning for their future, after all. In addition, are the needs of disabled people also taken into account?

My colleague Graham Simpson talked about the current top-down system. Greater participation leads to better planning. Good planning is holistic, which leads me to my third and final point.

Will the member take an intervention?

I will give way, if I am given some extra seconds.

I can give you the time back.

I heard Jamie Greene’s comments about community engagement. What is his position on a third-party or equal right of appeal?

I am no planning expert. One of the first pieces of advice that I was given when I got into politics was to stay away from planning. I am not the only member to do that.

The views of the community should be taken into account, but ultimately local authorities are best placed to make decisions, and decisions should not be overturned by a central body. I hope that that answers the question, but if it does not I will be happy to research the issue further and to write to Andy Wightman.

I will carry on with my point about connectivity. Digital connectivity is in my portfolio and I am very much interested in it. We rely on the internet to fill in our tax returns, to stream entertainment, to choose energy suppliers and to shop around. The people who miss out on that infrastructure are missing out on hundreds of pounds of savings each year. I am passionate about digital participation, which should start not when a person moves into their house, but in the planning process. We heard today at First Minister’s question time about new housing developments in our cities that do not have access to high-speed fibre; new housing schemes—not antiquated inherited structures.

Good planning should consider the impact of technologies such as fibre and 5G and how they can be integrated into local environments. There are some great examples of that. Renfrewshire Council is currently rolling out public access to wi-fi in its town centres. The council estimates that that will increase the number of visitors to the town centres, with a quarter of them spending more time in the area because of the free wi-fi. That will have a knock-on effect on retail.

In summary, good planning is based on reliable information and community participation, but it must also have connectivity at its heart, because that will lead not just to better places but to happier places.

16:30  

Like others, I commend Bill Bowman for making his first speech in the chamber since becoming an MSP. I think that he will find in the months and years ahead that a lot of agreement quite often gets reached in this place; it just does not get reported all that often.

I will look at the independent planning review’s recommendation that the local development plans that councils produce should be extended to run for 10 years. I understand the strategic benefit of such a move, given the certainty that a 10-year plan provides. There are benefits that come from planning well over a longer period and providing a reliable, trusted and stable regime for all. I get all that, but I have concerns.

First, councils already have 10-year development plans—Glasgow City Council does, anyway—which they revise at five-year intervals. In my experience, and as has been the case in Glasgow, a plan can be deeply flawed and can ignore communities. I will give a specific example from my constituency but, before I do so, I declare an interest as a home owner who opposed an alteration to Glasgow’s most recent local development plan in the area that I stay in.

There is a huge swathe of land that extends from Summerston in Maryhill west towards Bearsden and East Dunbartonshire and north towards Balmore Road. It has been designated as green belt for many a year but, in 2014, the city council decided that it wished to rezone the entire area and allow it to be zoned for housing. That was despite the council stating as recently as 2011 in the main issues report on the development of its plan that

“re-using brownfield land, as opposed to greenfield land”

was

“a cornerstone policy of the new Plan”

that it was about to develop. It also said that releasing any more greenfield sites would undermine that strategy.

One would have thought that the draft plan to be consulted on would mirror some of that thinking—after all, we are talking about the main issues report on the development of that plan. However, that was not at all the case—there was a complete U-turn, although the council’s analysis of housing needs flew in the face of the drastically altered conclusion that it eventually reached.

I stay around the corner—literally a stone’s throw away—from the land in question. Although I am the MSP for the area and a local resident, I was not notified, and I have no faith in the process that has led to the release of virtually all of Glasgow’s green-belt land to the north and west of my constituency. Ten-year plans that do not have community buy-in or appropriate levels of consultation simply lock in errors over a longer period, which is unacceptable. Before we give local authorities greater powers over communities, we must make sure that they are getting the basics right.

I note that the Government’s proposals give consideration to scrapping the main issues report. However, had the main issues report and guidance in the case that I just mentioned not been available to me and my constituents, we would never have known that the city council had directly contradicted itself in its final conclusions. I therefore contend that there is merit in keeping that document.

I will move on to the charrette process, which is often said to be the gold standard in community consultation, and I will look at how it has worked for regeneration in the Hamiltonhill area of my constituency. Hamiltonhill, which is just south of Possilpark, has seen a series of demolitions and housing clearances over the years. There remains a committed community that has waited patiently for the promised regeneration and development, and I am really pleased to say that I am feeling positive about the regeneration that is just about to happen and the plans that are there. There was a charrette at the very start of the process, but we have to make sure that it is not just an event but a process that is followed right through from the plan’s development to planning permission and whatever the new community will look like.

The Hamiltonhill community action group, which is made up of committed residents who wish to be part of the new Hamiltonhill, attended the initial charrettes and has been consulted to a degree since then. At meetings that I have sought with the local housing association and the council, I have talked about co-production and about sitting down with the local community action group and the public partners to design what the new Hamiltonhill could look like. I will just gently say that there has been some resistance to that idea.

I support charrettes, but a charrette must not be just a tick-box exercise at the beginning of a process that locks out community engagement afterwards. We must follow through on some of that.

I agree with what has been said about the idea of place planning by local communities. Gordon MacDonald and George Adam spoke about locking some of that into local development plans. There are places in my constituency where that has happened organically—for example, there is a local regeneration strategy in Royston because the council was not doing one, and we are about to start one in Springburn. That points to ways of levering in investment that might otherwise not have come along. If we can take some of the grass-roots community planning that the people who I represent want to be supported in and wed that to a council culture that is more open and engaging and involves co-production, we will have something special.

On the planning legislation that will come before the Parliament, I say yes to long-term strategic planning but no to locking in failures in the current process. I say yes to locality planning and yes to ensuring that local communities are directly in control of the majority of that.

Before we move to closing speeches, I say that I am extremely disappointed in Kate Forbes. This is the second time this week that she has not been in the chamber for closing speeches, even though she was in the chamber when I said that we were moving to closing speeches shortly. I have no doubt that the whips will convey that to her, and I expect a proper excuse for the Presiding Officers.

16:36  

I welcome the debate and the minister’s comment that it is a wide and open one—I hope that he is ready for this.

I commend Graham Simpson for an excellent speech. His amendment is also good but, unfortunately, we cannot support it—I will get to why that is the case later. I agree whole-heartedly with his analysis that, as it stands, planning is an extremely top-down system. Kate Forbes, who is not here—

She is.

I have to say that Ms Forbes made a hasty entrance. However, I still expect a reasoned excuse.

Kate Forbes—who is here—rightly said that planning is a contentious matter for politicians. I am a former member for Glasgow Kelvin, in Glasgow’s west end, so I cut my teeth on many campaigns about planning applications.

The reason why I cannot support the Conservative amendment, although I support its content, is that I will not be supporting the Government motion. I am trying to get my head around what is contained in the consultation document. I can only outline what I have seen so far. It proposes some technical changes, the implications of which we need to examine; some streamlining for house building; a bit of centralisation for housing targets; and an attempt to encapsulate what many of us want, which is community involvement in planning.

As Planning Democracy has said, the review assumed that streamlining planning would lead to more and better development. However, blaming the planning system per se for the slow delivery of development is not the right way to go; it is a bit of a distraction from asking more serious questions about resources. As Monica Lennon said, there is a lack of planning officers, and Homes for Scotland has referred to the fact that the national average time for planning decisions on applications has slowed to 48.5 weeks, which is quite a disgrace.

I will begin by talking about the importance of development plans. I do not really care that much if we move to 10-year plans. If the planning system is based on the development plan being a transparent document that sets out the local authority’s vision for an area, the local authority should, broadly speaking, be required to stick to it. However, in my experience of certain parts of Glasgow, that is not the case. Either local authorities stick to the development plans and the appeal process equally, or we must concede that the community should have some other form of redress, which I will get to.

The minister will be aware that, prior to 2009, local authorities were required to give notification of all breaches of their development plans, so that the Scottish Government could consider whether an individual breach was justified. The Government changed the requirement to give notification of all breaches to a requirement to give notification of a material breach. The guidance is as wide as the River Clyde, and communities are confused by that change. There were 15 areas where councils were required to notify the Government, but I think that that has been reduced to three. I cite that track record as one of my reasons for not wholly trusting the Scottish Government when it talks about community involvement.

In a good speech, George Adam talked about developers sometimes preferring sites that are easier and more lucrative, which is understandable. That has been the case in Park Circus, which is an international conservation site in the west end of Glasgow. The resourceful community there has run a well-resourced campaign and has cited multiple breaches of the development plan and the policy guidance on conservation. Trees were cut down from the site before consent was granted, and green space has been removed. I understand that building is to begin soon, and the community has no redress.

That is my point. Local authorities must—this applies to the Scottish Government, too, if it is asked to make a decision—stick to the guidance or there has to be a right of appeal.

Gordon MacDonald made an excellent speech. He, Andy Wightman and others addressed that tricky area. I have brought the issue—in the form of a community right of appeal—to the Parliament in the past. I have always believed in the need not perhaps to have an equal right of appeal but to have redress for communities.

The imbalance of power between communities and the planning system would get wider under the proposals, and that must be seriously considered. Ben Macpherson made an important point on that theme: it is even more frustrating when a local authority has used its development plan to make a decision and refused consent, but the application is granted on appeal.

A lot of areas in the system are imbalanced. This is our opportunity to look at how we could change that.

I would like the minister in summing up to address Graham Simpson’s point about the consultation document saying that ministers will take fewer decisions. I do not understand why, in a democratically accountable system, they would want to take fewer decisions, so I want to hear about that.

The 12-week pre-consultation period was a direct result of my amendment to the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill in 2006 to find a way of involving communities. That process has failed, because developers use it to their advantage. There needs to be a serious re-examination. If the Government believes in front loading and in giving communities a say, it needs to look at how that will be achieved.

16:42  

It is apt that, in the year we mark the birth 260 years ago of one of this country’s finest civil engineers, Thomas Telford, we are having this debate today. Few people have contributed more to our national and international infrastructure than the Dumfriesshire lad who went on to design and build countless canals, roads, harbours and buildings in this country and beyond. However, had he been working in 21st century Scotland and not the 18th century, how many of the architectural gems that we enjoy and still use today would have been completed, given the tight strictures and rules on planning and building? Maybe fewer. That is not, of itself, a bad thing. We do not live in Georgian times and planning rules and regulations and on what can be built where, when and, of course, by what workforce are vital.

As the minister made clear at the outset, although the current system has a lot to offer, there is always room for improvement. Therefore, we will support the Government’s motion, although ideally, as set out in our amendment, we would like it to go a little further.

The document says:

“Consultation is an essential part of the policy-making process. It gives us the opportunity to consider your opinion”.

As has been said, that opinion is important.

The motion calls for

“increasing the influence of local people on decisions about the future of their communities”

My colleague Graham Simpson noted that, in Scotland today, the planning system is top down, with little input from those most affected—the people.

As the minister acknowledged in his opening remarks, it often seems that planning is done to individuals, not for them or with them. Both the consultation and the review rightly note that and recognise the need to involve communities at the start of the process. We do that by making it more accessible by removing

“‘main issues reports’ and supplementary guidance”,

as the consultation makes clear, and by having more community involvement in the preparation of local place plans and

“more review decisions … made by local authorities rather than centrally.”

Jamie Greene was quick to note the motion’s call for digital transformation and how digital connectivity can link into the planning system. It is the final proposal in the consultation but it is no less valuable for that. In a considered and measured contribution, he said that planning should be done with foresight of the connectivity needs of the future and due consideration of the evidence.

Like proposal 16 in the consultation, the motion talks of developing skills, which is surely a key priority for any Government and should be at the heart of any development plan. I was delighted to hear the excellent maiden speech from Bill Bowman address that point. In an interesting and engaging contribution that augurs well for the future, he talked of how Dundee’s waterfront development shows how effective planning can bring regeneration together with commerce, hospitality, the arts and culture. In a persuasive summary, he talked of how the ultimate measure of the waterfront’s success will be what wealth and jobs it creates. Echoing Jamie Greene’s comments, he said that such a social dividend should be at the heart of our planning system.

On that note, I draw attention to one of the consultation’s many proposals on empowering people, which says that the Government seeks

“to introduce measures that enable children and young people to have a stronger voice in decisions about the future of their places.”

I found that very interesting.

Before I address our amendment, I will add a little to the discussion on infrastructure. It is interesting that the review of our planning system had this to say on infrastructure planning:

“Infrastructure is a central part of Scotland’s Economic Strategy … linking infrastructure with planned development is the most significant challenge for the Scottish planning system at this time.”

I agree.

Bill Bowman talked about the north-east. The burgeoning town of Inverurie—Scotland’s fastest-growing town—saw its population grow by one third in less than 10 years but has a bypass that was designed in the 1980s. We are delighted that the Aberdeen western peripheral route is being delivered, but it has been on the table for 40 years. The Laurencekirk junction improvements have been promised since 1999 and the Usan section of the east coast main line remains the only single-track part of the line. Therefore, proposal 13, which seeks to embed “an infrastructure first approach” with better co-ordination, must be worth exploration.

I said that we would support the motion. However, we seek support for a small but important amendment that

“urges the Scottish Government to put greater emphasis on protecting green spaces in its final proposals, noting their importance to the environment, quality of life, health and wellbeing.”

For many people in our cities, the green spaces in communities and the green belts that surround our towns and cities are vital to the vibrancy and wellbeing of those communities. As Graham Simpson says, we would like the Government to consider allowing communities the chance to apply for special protection for particular green areas that are important to them. As George Adam suggested, we urge the Government to look to give communities the ability to protect their green belts.

Graham Simpson also proposed new 10-year plans, which would give people certainty and indicate clearly to developers where they may not seek planning consent, as well as a planning process that acknowledges woodlands.

I note Ben Macpherson’s point on appeals, which was particularly well made and worthy of further consideration.

We have had a good-natured and constructive debate, which echoes the sixth outcome that the review proposes: that there should be more “collaboration rather than conflict”. It is vital to Scotland's economic future that we get planning right. That is why the Conservatives are supportive of the Government motion and the consultation. It is a good consultation. Like Gordon McDonald and the minister, I encourage all members of the public and stakeholders to respond to it.

I urge all members to consider our amendment. It is vital for the environment of Scotland—and, indeed, for the health and wellbeing of its people—that, in the final proposals, emphasis is put on the protection of green spaces.

I circle back to the start of my speech. Thomas Telford was a Dumfriesshire shepherd’s son who went on to be a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the founding president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and who is now entombed at Westminster abbey. He was a true great. Let us work together. Let the consultation be a signal to all that the country is building again. Let our ambition match that of Telford and let us make this the moment when our planning system really becomes world leading and inspires a new generation of Telfords for the 21st century.

16:50  

I am very grateful to all members for participating so actively in this debate on planning. As I said at the outset, planning is relevant to everyone and we all have a role to play in making the planning system work better. Although there are a number of issues on which we might disagree, there are many things on which we can all agree. I apologise, because I will not be able to respond to everyone who spoke in the debate.

I welcome Bill Bowman and congratulate him on his maiden speech. I miss Alex Johnstone immensely. He was a man who used to give me a good ribbing almost on a daily basis. He participated in parliamentary debate robustly, but he was always good humoured and friendly to all colleagues. He would have been glad that Mr Bowman recognised North East Scotland in the way that he did. Mr Bowman mentioned the Dundee waterfront regeneration and the social dividends that that could bring. We need to see such social dividends from development.

Graham Simpson agreed with much of what the consultation paper says. His amendment focuses on protecting green spaces. Existing planning policy is very supportive of that—local development plans should identify the green spaces—and I am more than happy to accept the Conservative amendment, because I agree with the thrust of it.

Where I disagree with Graham Simpson is on his assertion that the system, as it stands, is top down. The Government provides policy guidance on key national issues through the national planning framework and Scottish planning policy, which are, of course, subject to consultation, but we look to planning authorities to ensure that the local plans that deliver development for communities are right for those communities and protect their spaces.

A couple of folk—Kate Forbes and Jamie Greene—mentioned that they were told by previous colleagues to avoid planning at all costs. I was told something similar when I first entered Aberdeen City Council, but I became enthralled by strategic planning. That was mainly down to my discovering the 1952 Aberdeen local plan, which was a wonderful document. [Interruption.] I hear some “Ahs” in the background—I do not know whether those are supportive “Ahs” from folk who have read it or whether members are thinking, “Oh no—not again.”

That document was a brilliant piece of work. The foreword was written by Tom Johnston, the Labour wartime Secretary of State for Scotland. I am paraphrasing, but he congratulated the folk who put the document together and said that it was wonderful and that he hoped that all the plans would come to fruition. He said that the red weevils of bureaucracy were the only thing that would prevent those plans from coming to fruition. Unfortunately, his prediction came to pass, because many of the things in the plan did not happen and, in many cases, that was for bureaucratic reasons.

We have the opportunity here and now to look at the systems that we use. We agree with many of them, but there are many that folk in the chamber do not agree with. Let us all work together to get as many folk as possible to add their views to the consultation so that we come up with the best possible final scenario that we can in the planning bill.

Ben Macpherson, Alex Cole-Hamilton and other members have talked about infrastructure. In recent times, some things have come to light that were not really discussed before, such as the infrastructure for primary healthcare. We need to look at that. Ben Macpherson also talked about childcare on his patch. When we look at infrastructure, that should include social infrastructure and ensuring that childcare facilities exist, for example.

Mr Macpherson also mentioned looking at brownfield sites as part of permitted development for temporary use. That is also well worth exploring.

As per usual, George Adam managed to get in lots of talk about Paisley and its history—there was no surprise there. On his point about historic buildings and buildings that are left to waste, we have to ensure that we do better in enforcement. We have the opportunity to do that through the consultation and the planning legislation. The Government is committed to looking at reviewing compulsory purchase orders and to exploring compulsory sale orders to ensure that we get it right for such buildings in those places.

I know that the minister has only three minutes to close, but I am anxious that he addresses two points. First, if the Government is clearly not going to support any right of appeal for communities, how does the minister seriously think that that imbalance can be redressed? Secondly, why are ministers taking fewer decisions?

I have got that point in my final points.

On getting it right for communities, I have said all along that we need to ensure that community planning and spatial planning are interlinked. Community plans should be taken account of in spatial planning. Beyond that, as others have also said, I want more people to be involved in the system at the very beginning. In particular, I want young folk to be involved in it, as they are almost always the ones who come up with solutions that some of us have not thought about. After all, we are planning their futures.

Pauline McNeill asked about ministerial decisions. Ministers still require certain applications to be notified, but they use powers to recall sparingly, where there is a natural issue. It is important that we are proportionate in that. In some regards, I am often in a no-win position in my job.

I realise that I have 30 seconds left.

I appeal to every member to get their communities involved in the consultation. I am keen to hear from communities throughout Scotland and all stakeholders. The planning bill presents us with a great opportunity. Let us ensure that we hear all the voices of the people of Scotland.