Chamber and committees

It would be interesting to see how things develop a year from now. Mairi Maciver, you have indicated that you want to come in.

Does anybody have anything to add?

Morag Ferguson or Mairi Maciver, would one of you like to come in? Morag is nodding.

Great. It is really heartening to hear that. Perhaps we will see more examples of such models because, at the end of the day, as you said, people in those communities will be living there long after developers have gone.

I will preface my next question by saying that we might not have time for everybody to answer, although I recognise that each witness will have a different perspective, so come in if something has not been covered in the responses so far.

We have heard about the climate and nature aspects of policies. NPF4 has six basic principles, including local living, compact urban growth, the wider place principle and a just transition. Claire Daly, have those principles had any influence on the location and type of developments over the past year? I recognise that we are having this conversation quite early in the existence of NPF4.

It is about bedding in the new policy framework and understanding how all the things work together.

That is helpful. I will bring in Miles Briggs with a number of questions.

David Givan, will you answer that question first? You might have a few brownfield sites in your portfolio.

Thank you very much for that. As no one else has an opinion about the hierarchy aspect—I do not see anyone wanting to jump in—I will move on to my next question.

Another thing that we have heard from witnesses is the need for planning authorities to take a proportionate approach to the amount of information that is required to support a planning application, especially in light of the new NPF4 requirements on climate and biodiversity. I would be interested to hear from you all on that. I will start with David Givan. Do you have a sense that local authorities are adopting a proportionate approach? If not, could you give us an understanding of why that is not happening, and what we would need to do to minimise the amount of supporting information that is required?

Thank you very much for that. It was a sobering point to end on, but it is an important one. At the beginning of the session, the committee set out that we would like people to be excited rather than exercised by planning, and we are trying to do our bit to make sure that people understand. On the points that Ian Aikman made about young people caring about the climate and nature emergencies, having a home to live in and where the rivers flow, I note that planning offers a really important place for that.

As always, I wish that we had more time, because there were lots of tributaries that we could have delved into further. I hope that we will get a good picture from this panel of witnesses, the next one, the ones last week and some others, and I think that that is already happening. Thank you all so much for joining us. I briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

I welcome our witnesses on the second and final panel. We are joined by Esmé Clelland, who is the senior conservation planner at RSPB Scotland and convener of Scottish Environment LINK’s LINK planning group; Claire Daly, who is head of policy and communications at Sustrans and is representing the Climate Emergency Response Group; Clare Symonds, who is the chair of Planning Democracy; and Morag Watson, who is the director for onshore wind power at Scottish Renewables.

Before we turn to questions, I want to let you know that we will try to direct our questions at specific witnesses where possible, but if you would like to come in, please indicate that to me or the clerks.

There is no need for you to operate your microphones. If you could make sure that your electronic gadgets are in silent mode, that would be great.

I will begin. I would like to understand whether you have a sense that planning authorities and developers have changed their approach to development and decision-making, in the light of NPF4 policies on climate change and biodiversity. I said that I would direct my questions specifically, so I will pass that to Claire Daly first. I know that you all have different perspectives. I have asked that initial general question; I will then ask Planning Democracy a specific question.