Community Land Scotland response to:
Places, people and planning – a consultation on the future of the Scottish planning system
March 2017
Introduction
Community Land Scotland is the representative organisation for Scotland’s community land owners who, between them, own over 500,000 acres of land, much of it currently in the Highlands and Islands, but with increasing membership and ownerships all across Scotland.
Community Land Scotland has a membership of just over 70, each member representing a single community or a number of communities within any particular landownership.
Community Land Scotland in this response is not seeking to respond to the entire consultation, but to those parts it sees as most relevant to the interests of its members.
Local community land owners are in very many respects agents of social and economic development of their place; they seek at the same time to enrich the environment and culture of their place. Many community land owners are multi-functional enterprises involved in land use and land use planning and in this context the effective functioning of the planning system is vital to the long term interests of the development of their places and community.
Community Land Scotland groups its comments on the consultation under the main questions the consultation asks. Where any comment relates specifically to one or more of the `Optional Technical Questions’, this is referenced by `OTQ’ and the relevant number.
A. Do you agree that our proposed package of reforms will improve development planning?
OTQ 1. Yes.
OTQ 3. The thrust of the proposed improvements regarding the National Planning Framework and Scottish Planning Policy have some merit. However, there is a danger by the approach that there is more centralised control and direction of planning policies that play out and are felt relevant at the local level. Emphasis in the NPF framework should be that local and regional plans inform the NPF every bit as much as the NPF informs local development planning.
With regard to SPP formation in particular, of its very nature influencing the SPP comes more readily to powerful coalitions of interests that operate at the national level, than it does to local communities. This has the danger that through SPP policies an external view of place can impose itself on that place. This may be particularly true in landscape and scenic considerations, for example. An illustration of this would be the way in which one cultural construct of much Highland and Island landscape, one which has obtained status within SPP, would portray that landscape as `wild’ and `natural’ and to be protected as such, when a local view may be that the very same landscape is, far from being `wild’ and `natural’, desolate and forlorn, lacking bio-diversity and is unpeopled, and that these are the consequences of the activities of humans over comparatively recent history. A more local view might see the need for NPP to recognise the legitimate place of people in that landscape, a view that would have historic accuracy and precedent, and for that landscape to be, to some extent, re-peopled and, as some might express it, `rewilded’. The important point is that in strengthening the statutory place of the NPF and SPP in future actions this should not allow them to become centrally driven policy to the exclusion of regional and local views.
OTQ 4.
The proposal to remove the Main Issues Report from a statutory requirement to be consulted on may be a legitimate streamlining measure. However, the Main Issues Report does give the context for the map and plan based development plan and explains the underlying logic of what is driving specific proposals, for example in relation to population and housing need. It also gives an opportunity for different interests to comment on whether all the `main issues’ have been identified and/or given the correct weight. So, within the revised arrangements local authorities should still have an explicit `main issues’ rationale for what motivates the particulars of a plan, even if that is not of itself required to be consulted on statutorily.
4(a) Lengthening the period of the plan currency to 10 years may reduce the inputs necessary for more regular updating and this may be useful overall and to allow a greater focus on delivery. However, the danger is that the plan becomes out of date and less and less relevant as one advances through the later years of its currency. There would require to be compensating flexibility for aspects of it to be reviewed and updated. In particular the concept of `supplementary guidance’ remains relevant here (even if it is non-statutory) to permit a plan to be responsive to changing circumstances or new insights. In particular, when it comes to local communities planning, the adoption of a community plan should be capable of incorporation into the development plan at any point during the plan’s currency.
OTQ 5. The concept of the `gatecheck’ arrangement seems appropriate
OTQ 6. Yes.
OTQ 8. A stronger focus on delivery programmes after a plan has been adopted would be an important shift in the planning system’s focus and has some legitimacy. Within this there is a need to advance and facilitate development by embracing greater use of land assembly powers (CPO) and a new power of a Compulsory Sale Order will have a potentially strong part to play. Land Reform thinking could assist here too and it may be appropriate to consider the lack of delivery against the local development plan to be a reason for Ministers to grant a community right to buy land necessary to deliver the development plan. More generally community land or development trusts should be seen as potential new partners in delivery programmes.
B. Do you agree that our proposed package of reforms will increase community involvement in planning?
OTQ 9. This proposal for communities to be able to plan their own place is warmly welcome. Communities should have the opportunity to make their own place plans and have them adopted by the local authority as part of the Development Plan, as is proposed. Communities will however, require assistance with what is a complex process requiring alertness to NPF and SPP policies, and a range of other considerations. This proposal, however, could be one of the most empowering within the changes envisaged for the planning system. As the consultation recognises, this cannot just be become a process for NIMBYISM, but must contain a balance of development and conservation policies.
OTQ 9(a). The local community led plans should have an eye to wider planning policy, but they should also be the main vehicle to permit local views and priorities to be considered and potentially find a place in formal planning of their place for the future.
OTQ 10. Community Councils should be consulted in the way suggested.
OTQ 13. Agree.
OTQ 14. Yes.
OTQ 15 (a)(b)(c) Agree.
OTQ 16. The consultation paper adequately expresses the reasons why island authorities and authorities with islands should have suitable flexibility to meet distinct local circumstances, and this is sensible. The needs of remote peninsula and remote areas generally have similar needs and this approach should not be limited to island areas alone.
C. Will these proposals help to deliver more homes and the infrastructure we need?
OTQ 17. Yes, although the methodology requires to meet the needs of rural areas with less defined settlement patterns and where single houses, or very small clusters, are appropriate to the landscape and has historic precedence. Too often the need for housing is seen as a matter of scale and to build on to existing settlements only, whereas an approach that is more permissive of re-settlement and of creating new settlements needs to be given greater validity.
OTQ 19. See comments in relation to OTQ 8 as relevant also to here. As a matter of principle the system should move to a `use it or lose it’ principle to guide the delivery of the development plan and where people in control of assets do not move to help with that delivery they should lose the prospect of blocking delivery simply by virtue of asset ownership. The Planning Bill that is to be developed should not rule out further land reform proposals where those would genuinely help facilitate the delivery of local development plans.
OTQ 20. The proposals for an Infrastructure Levy are insufficiently well developed to permit giving n view on whether his would be an appropriate development or not. It is not clear on whom the levy would be placed, at what rates, etc.
D. Do you agree the measures set out here will improve the way that the planning service is resourced?
In general we agree the measures outlined should assist delivery improvements. Above all however, the depletion of the planning service, the reductions in the number of people working within the system has direct effects on its ability to deliver. Changes to Planning Fees, if they contribute to improvements are one part of the mix. However, the planning system is designed to deliver wide public benefits and it should not be wholly dependent or indeed overly dependent on planning fees. The taxpayer as a whole has a role in ensuring a sound and effective planning system, in the public interest.
Community Land Scotland
March 2017