Ministers and industry welcome progress on waiting times for planning appeals

Published on Wednesday 7 January 2009 21:02

In November 2008, 37 per cent of all written submission appeals were decided within 12 weeks, compared with a figure of 4 per cent in April of that year.

Written submissions, which do not include cases involving public inquiries or hearings, make up the bulk of the Scottish Government's planning work and amounted to 1,400 cases in the 2008 financial year.

At present, Scottish Government ministers have a target for determining the outcome of planning appeals within a 20-week period.

However, the Scottish Government's Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals (DPEA) has been working with planning authorities across Scotland to try to complete as many written submission appeals as possible within 12 weeks.

The infrastructure secretary, Stewart Stevenson, said the Scottish Government was now on track to meet its target of determining more than 50 per cent of written submission cases within 12 weeks by April 2009.

This, he said, would amount to the removal of 80 years' worth of "dead time" from appeal processing over a single calendar year.

The minister said it was important to ensure that Scotland's planning system was an aid rather than a barrier to increasing sustainable economic growth, and that improving efficiency was especially important in the current uncertain economic climate.

Mr Stevenson said: "Speeding up the time taken to determine planning appeals builds on our economic recovery plan to ensure that all government activity, including on planning and regulation, is geared towards supporting economic development.

"This fulfils the Scottish Government's intention to remove dead time in processing these cases, freeing up resources and reducing the period of uncertainty for all involved."

Michael Levack, chief executive of the Scottish Building Federation, welcomed the figures and called on local authorities to follow Scottish ministers' lead on speeding up planning decisions.

Mr Levack claimed the planning system had become a byword for delay and bureaucracy and that planning departments too often failed to deliver for communities and businesses.

He said: "Hundreds of construction jobs and millions of pounds of investment in Scottish communities are reliant on an efficient planning system that enables local development and does not cause expensive delays. It is testimony to the woeful performance of recent years that we should be lauding an improvement that still leaves two out of three appeals waiting more than 12 weeks for a decision.

"However, it does show that where there is political leadership and a willingness to keep investment and development moving, significant improvements can be made."