Chamber and committees

Good morning. Quite a few witnesses have touched on the ambitious nature of the draft NPF4. Does it need to be accompanied by a capital investment plan for those ambitions to be realised? I ask Pam Ewen to answer first.

The draft national planning framework states:

“We want an infrastructure-first approach to be embedded in Scotland’s planning system.”

What do the witnesses think an infrastructure-first approach should look like? Will NPF4 deliver that? If not, what changes would they suggest? That question goes first to Nicola Barclay.

Thank you for those answers. Will national or local government structures and funding deliver some of the outcomes that we are talking about? Do you feel that the Government should produce a capital investment infrastructure plan to deliver on some of the issues that we talked about in relation to the first question? On local government, we have heard concerns regarding planning departments’ resources and whether they are sufficient to deliver the outcomes that we would like to see in the draft NPF4.

Thanks, convener. We are talking about investment and implementation of the strategy, policies and housing targets. NPF4 will be in place for 10 years; a five-year national planning framework has been the normal practice. In that context, how can implementation and delivery best be monitored and reviewed in that decade-long plan?

Thank you.

I move from funding to implementation and monitoring. As we move from a five-year planning framework to a 10-year planning framework, how important is it to monitor and review the implementation of the strategy, policy and housing targets, and how best do we do that?

Do members of the panel think that the policy priorities that are set out in the draft plan align with other Government strategies and investment priorities? Do you think that the draft plan would benefit from having its own capital investment programme to ensure that some of the ambitions are delivered? Perhaps Professor Leigh Sparks would like to come in, as he has not had a chance to contribute so far.

Good morning. I want to come back to the point that Robbie Calvert made in his response to the opening question about a funding document to support some of the aims and principles in NPF4. Some submissions have suggested that, in order for some of these things to be realised, the document should be supplemented with a capital investment programme. I will start with Robbie Calvert, and then perhaps the rest of the panel can say whether they support such an inclusion and see it as necessary.

Do you feel that NPF4 and the associated documents will mean more flexibility in local decision making rather than a stricter approach?

Thank you.

I want to ask about competing priorities for planners and local councillors who will make the decisions. NPF4 will be part of our redevelopment plan, and planners and councillors will sometimes be expected to balance competing policy objectives within different documents within that plan but also the competing priorities of their local communities, who might not be so supportive of what is in the plan. What guidance will the directorate give to planning authorities and councillors about how they balance their competing priorities?