In June 2002 the Executivepublished its report Review of Strategic Planning: Conclusions and Nextsteps. The report is available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre. Theintention is to replace the two-tier system of development planning with localdevelopment plans for all areas and new City Region Plans in the four maincities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee.

As part of a package ofinitiatives to improve development planning, a pilot development plans projectis under way with Highland Council and South Lanarkshire Council examining thebarriers to, and opportunities for, moving to the new system of localdevelopment plans. The aim is for the plans to be prepared more quickly and forthese to be shorter, more concise documents with a focus on delivery. It isintended to set out the detailed proposals for modernising development planningfor consultation towards the end of 2003.

Additionally, a programme ofaudits of local authorities’ development plans by the Scottish Executive Planning Audit Unit is continuing. These audits involve work with localauthorities to identify best practice and assist them improve their performancein preparing local plans.

Information is onlyavailable on the time taken to prepare local plans started after localgovernment reorganisation in April 1996. Plans have taken between 32 and 84months.

Including plans which havestarted and are at various stages of preparation there is local plan coverageacross the whole of Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-2408 today, which is available on the Parliament’swebsite, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

Information on the status ofstructure and local plans can be found on the development plan progress page onthe Scottish Executive Planning home page at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/planning/development_progress/view2.asp. This information isupdated when any progress is made.

It is a requirement ondevelopers applying to the Scottish ministers for consent under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 that they place advertisements in the local andnational press describing the proposal, its location and to whomrepresentations should be made. This requirement extends to those offshoredevelopments within territorial waters, in which case the locality would beconsidered to be the landward areas likely to be directly affected by thedevelopment.

The following table showsthe number of dwellings completed in Scotland for 1998-2002.

	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
Dwellings Completed in Scotland	19,566	22,654	23,469	23,088	22,665

Source: Quarterly trendshousing series statistical bulletin HSG/2003/5. This is available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre and in the publications section of the Scottish Executive website.

Funding for local roads andbridges forms part of the general Local Government Finance settlement. As partof this, Highland Council will receive above inflation increases in revenuesupport of 8.0% this year, and of 5.1% and 3.6% over the next two years. It isa matter for the council to decide its own spending priorities.

Funding for Citizens AdviceBureaux is a matter for local authorities who are best placed to decide on theallocation of resources according to the needs of their particular areas.

Very substantial progress has been made towards achieving the target of ending mixed sex hospital wards with almost 99% of wards fully compliant. Plans are in place to make six more wards compliant by next April. Discussions continue with two trusts to ensure that the remaining 15 wards are made compliant in the shortest possible time. In the meantime, all trusts have been reminded of the need to agree with their local health council a local policy to ensure that the dignity and privacy of patients is respected at all times in these wards.