This June MSPs finished what Chief Planner for the Scottish government John McNairny described as a “lengthy and controversial process” to pass the 2019 Planning Act to reform the system. The bill introduces new requirements for councils to appoint chief planning officers to prepare regional plans and manage changes for communities. McNairny said that the reforms would enable the Scottish Government to deliver “Sustainable and inclusive economic growth”. [emaillocker id=”71749″]

In his keynote speech, McNairny said the government was looking towards “Looking at whole system change, whole system improvement” for planning in Scotland. The reform has already been successful, with McNairny claiming that “With 27,000 applications going through the planning system at present, about 25,000 of those go through the system relatively smoothly”.

Community consultation makes up a key part of the planning reform, with McNairney stating that a difficulty with the former system was that “Communities often felt out of the loop and felt planning was something done to them”. The new system includes a community buy-in, and a system of Local Place Plans, which enable community consultations over what they wish land to be used for and then incorporated into the Local Development Plans. 

Opening the potentials for development is also core to the reforms,  the Chief Planner said We will remove strategic development plans and replace them with lighter touch regional spatial strategies”. The reforms seek to end what McNairney described as the “Micromanagement of the built environment”, with development plans moved to review every 10 years, to end the system of constant planning.

McNairney said that delivery can be improved via a “Gatecheck so plans can only progress if everything is agreed upfront”, which is further enabled by a digital transformation to the system including the ”Stronger use of data, stronger use of visualisation and of digital mapping”. “

Improving planning resources was a serious concern to McNairney, who is seeking to increase the skills and funding of planners, he said “Performance and fees are very much linked, the planning service, not just in Scotland has lost expertise and numbers, the planning fee although it has increased significantly in recent years, does not fully cover the cost of processing applications”

The bill has mechanisms to introduce a Levy within the next seven years, but McNairney did not reveal details of implementation “The Act has introduced Enabling provisions for an infrastructure levy  that’s simply an enabling provision, we have seven years to take up the regulation and guidance of an infrastructure levy, this is intended to give further clarity”

Connectivity between different planning institutions is a key part of the reforms, with the implementation of a Strategic National Planning Framework, connecting 20 infrastructure providers, including private sector organisations. This will feed directly into local plans, creating what McNairny dubbed as “a golden thread from national policy into local delivery plans”

McNairny concluded by saying of the reform “‘All of this is about improving the quality of our places, it is around economic growth, inclusive growth, stronger and more cohesive delivery of infrastructure’ [/emaillocker]