Chamber and committees

Thank you for the opportunity to input our priorities, we very much appreciate being asked. Planning Democracywould like to thank the previous committee for their hard work on the planning bill. 

We note that a key part of the current committee’s remit will be overseeing the scrutiny of the NPF4. We would also like to suggest some additional areas of work that the committee may like to consider. 

National Planning Framework 4

With regard to NPF4 we wish the committee to consider the alignment of policies and examine how conflicting priorities between climate change, biodiversity loss, housing provision and economic growthwill be weighed up in planning decisions. NPF4 needs to be clear about the trade-offs that will emerge between different outcomes and policies and how these will be managed and prioritised. 

The committee might explore the use of public interest tests that could be used to regulate development to ensure open deliberation of these important but competing priorities. 

Planning Democracy agree with a much stronger ambition to use the planning system to address inequalities, particularly given all we know about the environmental determinants of health and well-being. Outcome based measures of the social impact of development could also be explored as part of the public interest tests.

 Housing need and private sector housing

NPF4 is required to have an overarching outcome of tackling climate change and reaching net zero carbon emissions. A further key outcome is meeting the housing needs of people living in Scotland. NPF4 needs to deliver higher levels of affordable housing and much more appropriate housing for people with specific needs and at the same time must ensure housing development is of high environmental quality and located in the right places to address net zero climate targets. Key policy ambitions including 20 minute neighbourhoods, placemaking and shifting development away from greenfield land could help to achieve both outcomes. 

However, Scotland and indeed the UK, have become increasingly reliant on the private sector to build housing, and there are questions to be asked about whether this system can deliver the types of housing needed, in the most sustainable and efficient way. The committee could examine evidence on whether housing outcomes are achievable with the current approach to housing.

The committee could look for evidence to demonstrate that NPF4 supports alternatives to private sector housing models and assists public led housing delivery, for example public assembly mechanisms.Part of that public led planning should be a strong and achievable commitment to enabling community led developments and self build. We recommend bringing in community organisations, for example, co-housing pioneers to give evidence on the barriers they face and the benefits their approach to housing can bring to diversify Scotland’shousing models. 

Plan led development and housing land supply

During the planning reforms one common area of agreement between all stakeholders was that planning should be plan led. Whilst the ambition of a plan-led system appears universal, the reality is that Scotland has a market driven, development-led system. The implementation of plans relies on the willingness of landowners and developers to bring sites forward for development and the system allows for speculative developments that depart from democratically agreed plans. This prevents planners from proactively delivering development where it is needed, instead they have to react to the desires and priorities of developers and landowners. This significantly limits the scope of planning to promote social and environmental justice. We ask the committee to consider this in relation to other Parliamentary committee work on land reform and social justice as well as NPF4. 

While ostensibly administering a plan-led system in which development can be directed to achieve long-term public interest goals, Scottish Planning Policy requires planners to deliver a reliable pipeline of permissioned land to enable the private housebuilding industry to deliver Government housing targets. Local authorities are currently required to maintain and annually update a 5-year effective supply of housing land, however certain ambiguities and loopholes enable developers and land promoters to override other local designations for land, such as greenbelt and agricultural uses, to gain approval for developments that deviate from adopted plans and would otherwise be considered unsustainable. 

National planning policies such as the ‘presumption in favour of development that contributes to sustainable development’ and definitions of effective land supply as well as a lack of clarity on how to calculate land supply makes it difficult to refuse speculative housebuilding applications that go against the local plan.

Government attempts to strengthen these policies to prevent this have recently been quashed by a legal challenge (to the consultation process not the intended policy changes) made by the housebuilding industry. The implications are that development is not planned and delivered where it is needed most, other important aspects of sustainable development are over ridden and there is an increasingly sceptical and angry public who have been encouraged to participate in development planning, but who find those plans undermined and their efforts to engage with a complex and unfair system wasted. 

We urge the committee to look at the issue of 5 year land supply. Without more public led planning, local authorities are not in a position (financially or in terms of landownership) to deliver housing development themselves in the 5 year land supply.  They cannot guarantee that the 5year land supply is deliverable. We question whether to place a 5year limit on land development, to penalise non delivery, and impose sites which are NOT in the Local Development Plan is wrong, undemocratic and obviously not plan led. 

Thereis a growing concern from communities that the draft housing targets being considered for inclusion in NPF4 are given priority over climate and other sustainability considerations, but are still not delivering affordable housing needs to those that really need it. 

We ask the committee to include adequate time in the NPF4 scrutiny process to ensuring such policies around effective housing land supply receive adequate attention and robust evidence gathering on this rather technical but crucial aspect.

Biodiversity and Climate Change

We ask that the committee ensure that NPF4 reflects the First Minister’s promising recognition of the equal importance of Biodiversity loss as well as Climate Change. The NPF4 will need transformative and robust policies to ensure that restoration of biodiversity and biodiversity net gain is an essential part of Scotland’s approach to tackling climate change and biodiversity loss. We ask that the committee visit and seek evidence from local community planning campaignswho are working to protect and enhance biodiversity to help ensure NPF4 contains strong policies that can truly protect our environment, as well as speaking to colleagues within Scottish Environment LINK (of which we are a member) in the scrutiny process. 

National Developments

We have concerns about a lack of transparency and genuine public involvement over the process of deciding national developments. National developments are given a certain status which means that once named in the NPF4 the question of need is established. Ideally, we would like to see more deliberative mechanisms (e.g. citizens’ assemblies) to be introduced into the NPF4 participation statement to help better involve Scotland’s citizens in decision making about their national development priorities. However, we are unsure of the committee’s ability to influence the consultation process at this stage, however we ask the committee ensure that the criteria and assessment of National Developments is a sufficiently robust and detailed process that reflects climate and biodiversity ambitions of the plan. 

Local Place Plans

The Planning Act 2019 placed emphasis on community engagement in plan development. However, evidence suggests that public participation has relatively limited power in the later more impactful development management aspect. Local Place Plans are purported to be a tool for community empowerment and could promise to be transformative. Planning historically has been siloed and we are pleased to see efforts to widen the scope of NPF4 to ‘have regard’ for land use strategies and other areas of work. Local Place Plans should also transcend planning boundaries, but to do this takes a lot of commitment and knowledge. There is a serious lack of resources to support communities to develop these plans, particularly for those communities with other more pressing priorities and needs. The committee may like to consider this in their budget considerations. 

However importantly even Local Place Plans that do become incorporated into Development Plans may well be undermined by the fact that there is nothing in the system to incentivise or enable applications thatdeliver the aspirations of the plans. This often comes as a significantdisappointment to any community who have devoted time and energy into developing a plan and brings into question why time and resources might be spent on them. The committee could look at means to help communities deliver the ambitions of their own Local Place Plans themselves, particularly housing, perhaps through land reform or community empowerment legislation.

Of key concern is that there is nothing to prevent applications that run contrary to Local Place Plans that are adopted into the development planfrom being granted permission. The Planning Act 2019 did not include the right of appeal for communities even with regard to applications that deviate from agreed and adopted Local Place Plans. We would welcome a fresh look at this issue. 

Transition Team

We ask that the committee look intothe creation of a transition team with academic and representatives with the necessary expertise to explore ways to guide and accelerate sustainability transitions in housing, planning and indeed wider land uses. The team should focus on developing transformational policies and devise an implementation programme that helps to institutionalise different values, mindset and behaviours that enable a transition towards a planning system orientated towards the creation of well-being economy and committed to addressing the climate and biodiversity emergencies

Resourcing Planning Departments

With regard to allocating budgets, planning departments need to be well resourced in order to deliver good planning outcomes. Enforcement is one area where we feel resourcing skills expertise and staff would help to deliver better planning outcomes, especially given that the planning system needs to rapidly shift emphasis to a post-Covid wellbeing economy and crucially address Climate Change. We recommend better resourcing of Local Authority planning departments. 

Human Right to a Healthy Environment

The Scottish Government’s National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership have detailed proposals for a new Human Rights law with a recommendation to include the human right to a healthy environment. A Human Rights Bill will be introduced during this Parliamentary session taking forward the recommendations of The National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership’s report. 

A useful contribution to the debate prior to the Bill might be for the committee to set up an enquiry and deliberative process on how a new framework may affect day to day Local Government functions and work and how they will need to be adjusted, supported and funded to ensure human rights are upheld. For example, how human rights to a healthy environment will affect planning and housing such asrequiring adequate access to greenspace and ensuring housing is of good quality and traffic arrangements in towns and cities do not create pollution.