Chamber and committees

Continuing on the same subject, what impact might an LDP amendment process have on the planning authority’s resources and on already busy planning stakeholders, who might be required to respond to multiple LDP amendments at one time?

I am sure that that is very welcome news to our struggling planning authorities in relation to the need for us to move to full cost recovery.

We have come to the end of our questions, so many thanks for giving evidence this morning.

We turn to agenda item 4, which is consideration of the motion on the Town and Country Planning (Amendment of National Planning Framework) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. I invite the minister to move motion S6M-14644.

Motion moved,

That the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recommends that the Town and Country Planning (Amendment of National Planning Framework) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.—[Ivan McKee.]

Motion agreed to.

We agreed to take the next agenda items in private, so I now close the public part of the meeting.

That is great—thank you for letting me know about that.

Minister, I have one more question around the EIAs. Who will pay for the environmental impact assessments that are associated with the MCAs? Will the planning authority be required to do so while the MCA scheme is being developed, or will the cost fall to the eventual developer?

I see that Ruairidh Anderson wants to come in as well.

I have a couple of questions to clarify the process around the environmental impact aspect of the masterplan consent areas. As I understand it, if a local authority designates an area as an MCA, it has to do an overall environmental impact assessment on the whole MCA. Is that correct?

The second item on our agenda is to decide whether to take items 7 to 12 in private. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

We come now to Alexander Stewart, who has questions on master consent areas.

Thank you very much minister. Indeed, we have a number of questions. We will look at the SSIs in relation to the LDPs, then we will go to the MCAs and finally to the fourth national planning framework and the EIA MCA.

Starting with the LDPs, when do you expect a planning authority to make amendments to an adopted local development plan? How often would you expect that to happen during the lifetime of a local development plan?

So, it is early days.