Alison Hay: ‘Black holes’ in planning system cannot be solved overnight

My knowledge of black holes is limited, but I don’t think we are heading towards a catastrophic event in planning. It’s more of a moving away from the metophorical black hole, towards an inclusive, plan-led system which delivers sustainable economic growth. This change cannot be undertaken overnight, but good progress has been made to date and everyone needs to build on the good practice out there, increasing the speed of delivery but not at the cost of quality decisions.

It was disappointing to read that the overall positive content of the report has not made its way through to the headlines, but in a way it was also reassuring to see the importance placed on planning and its continued resourcing. Whilst I don’t use the F word in conversation, we do need to consider the level of “fees” local planning authorities can charge.

It’s important to highlight the fact that we have nearly doubled the number of up-to-date development plans in Scotland, delivered improved performances on processing applications at a time of continuing culture change and reduction in workforce. It is a credit to all involved in the land-use planning system.

I do think we need to move away from measuring planning decisions by the speed taken to process them. Given the impact upon the built environment for decades of new development, surely it is better to give due consideration and have appropriate engagement with the communities effected. We need to give certainty to developers, yes, but we also need to give that reasurrace to communities and that takes time and can involve significant amount of resources. Councils can get quicker in our collective performance, but all involved in an application have a part to play when it comes to improvement, the whole burden can’t be left to councils.

l Alison Hay is the spokeswoman for Cosla Regeneration and Sustainable Development.