Chamber and committees

NHS Boards are required to provide regular updates to the Scottish Government on the status and progress of National Treatment Centre projects. NHS Lothian is currently refreshing the Outline Business Case for the Edinburgh Eye Pavilion replacement project and will subsequently submit a Full Business Case to Scottish Government. Recent progress includes work to develop a Briefing Pack and Exemplar Design which will incorporate requirements to meet the NHS Assure process; Net Zero Carbon legislation; site location; learnings from the Covid-19 pandemic and impact on Clinical Pathways and outputs of the ‘NHS Lothian: Strategic Review of Ophthalmology Services’ completed in 2021. NHS Lothian has also appointed a Health Planner to further develop the Clinical Brief and associated Schedule of Accommodation, based on the outline clinical strategy produced in 2021.

NHS Lothian is currently refreshing the Outline Business Case for the Edinburgh Eye Pavilion replacement project and will subsequently submit a Full Business Case to the Scottish Government. The FBC will undergo the usual scrutiny and approval processes for infrastructure and investment projects within NHSScotland and a response will be provided once this process has concluded.

Litigation is ongoing and external costs will be published on a regular basis. We will publish initial data on spending in September, and on a quarterly basis thereafter, until the conclusion of the litigation.

Spending on active travel will increase throughout Scotland as we realise the Programme for Government commitment to increase the active travel budget to at least £320 million or 10% of the transport budget from 2024-25 onwards. The detail of how that significant increase in investment will apply in different local authority areas is still to be determined.

The Scottish Government supports all local authorities to deliver active travel through a variety of programmes including several run by third sector partners which local authorities can bid into and two direct funds – a LA resource fund of £2 million and a capital fund of £35 million (Cycling Walking and Safer Streets) both distributed pro rata this year across all 32 local authorities.

As the programme managers and project owners, the details of any such exercises lie with Sustrans and City of Edinburgh Council (CEC). We understand that a value engineering exercise was undertaken by CEC and Sustrans in view of escalating cost pressures and timescales for several Places for Everyone projects. Places for Everyone is an active travel infrastructure programme run and programme managed by Sustrans with grant funding from Transport Scotland.

Litigation is ongoing and external costs will be published on a regular basis. We will publish initial data on spending in September, and on a quarterly basis thereafter, until the conclusion of the litigation.

Scottish Government funding for active travel in Edinburgh and other local authority areas is channelled through a number of programmes overseen by Transport Scotland. The single biggest programme is the Places for Everyone (PfE) programme, run by Sustrans with grant funding from Transport Scotland. From PfE, City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) has an indicative amount of £52,129,410 allocated to active travel projects over the next four years.

In addition, CEC receives £3,378,467 of Cycling Walking and Safer routes funding directly from Transport Scotland from a £35 million annual pot distributed pro rata to all 32 local authorities in Scotland. There are also various other partner delivered programmes which CEC can bid into for active travel projects, including the Smarter Choices Smarter Places fund for behaviour change projects, run by Paths for All.

Work to develop the establishment of Scottish Cities of Refuge will start later in this Parliamentary term.

The development of Cities of Refuge will align with the approach of our New Scots refugee integration strategy, which sets out the vision of a welcoming Scotland, where people seeking protection are supported to rebuild their lives from the day they arrive.

The prior notification and approval process introduced in 2014 enables planning authorities to consider the impacts of agricultural and forestry private ways (sometimes referred to as hill tracks) on the environment and local amenity. Through this process, the planning authority can require changes to the design, manner of construction and route of a proposed private way to minimise potentially harmful impacts. It is for the relevant planning authority to consider each prior notification application on its individual merits.

It is open to the planning authority to refuse prior approval if they consider such impacts cannot be satisfactorily mitigated. Furthermore, if the proposed development would require an environmental impact assessment, the permitted development rights do not apply.

The Scottish Government is currently carrying out a review of permitted development rights in Scotland. We have committed to consider the permitted development rights for private ways as part of the review programme and we will consult on proposals for change in due course.

The current permitted development rights for agricultural and forestry private ways (sometimes referred to as hill tracks) are subject to a prior notification and approval process, through which the planning authority can require changes to the design, manner of construction and route of a proposed private way to minimise potentially harmful impacts, including on peatland. It is for the relevant planning authority to consider each prior notification application on its individual merits.

It is open to the planning authority to refuse prior approval if they consider such impacts cannot be satisfactorily mitigated. Furthermore, if the proposed development would require an environmental impact assessment, the permitted development rights do not apply.

The Scottish Government is currently carrying out a review of permitted development rights in Scotland. We have committed to consider the permitted development rights for private ways as part of the review programme and we will consult on proposals for change in due course.