Chamber and committees

I have been wondering about the model of individual or semi-detached housing, such as developments on the edge of Edinburgh or the edge of the town where I live. Is consideration being given in the housing sector to the point that we perhaps need to have different models, even in rural or more rural areas, that involve terraced housing so that we are not using up so much land? Since I have been a member of Parliament, there has been a challenge around what we put on the land that we have. There is now a call for food such as vegetables to be grown more locally and not imported so much. Everything has to give a bit. Are Homes for Scotland’s members looking at different styles of housing that they might make available?

Bruce Watson wants to come back in but, in the interests of time, I would like to move on—I might be saying that a lot this morning. See if you can tuck whatever you wanted to bring in into another response, Bruce.

We will move to questions from Mark Griffin, who is joining us online. I ask Mark to put all his questions at the same time.

I was going to ask a question about wild land, which Morag Watson brought up. The John Muir Trust got in touch with the committee with concerns that policy 4 does not offer protection. Morag Watson spoke about that, and I would like to hear from Scottish Wildlife Trust.

Thank you. I think I have a new word: salutogenic. I think I can imagine what that means. I turn to Cliff Hague.

Thanks very much. I am going to move on to questions from Miles Griffins—[Interruption.] I am sorry; it has been a long morning, and I am beginning to merge my colleagues.

I call Mark Griffin, who joins us online.

That was interesting. As Mark Griffin is done with his questions, we will move on to questions from Marie McNair.

There is an opportunity for well-skilled community facilitators. What you said about how to pull community wealth building through local place plans is very interesting. There is exciting work to be done.

We will move on to questions from Paul McLennan.

That brings our questions to an end. I thank our witnesses for joining us this morning—actually, we have moved into the afternoon—and for opening up the conversation and broadening the topic. We will continue taking evidence on NPF4 at next week’s meeting, when we will hear from the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth. I suspend the meeting briefly to allow our witnesses to leave.

At the start of this meeting, we agreed to take the next two items in private. As we have no more public business today, I now close the public part of the meeting.

Good morning and welcome to the 29th meeting in 2022 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I ask all members and witnesses to ensure that all their devices are on silent and that all notifications are turned off during the meeting.

The first item on the agenda is to decide whether to take items 4 and 5 in private. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.