Rights of Appeal in Planning
MINISTERIAL FOREWORD
With this consultation paper, we are honouring our commitment made last year in our White Paper Your Place, Your Plan and reinforced when we published A Partnership for a Better Scotland, our Partnership Agreement. We are seeking views on whether we should introduce a new provision that would widen rights of appeal in planning.
Public participation is a fundamental and long-standing element of our land use planning system. People must feel confident that they have been heard and have had their views taken into account when decisions are made about the future development of their areas. Those who have applied for planning permission, but had it refused by their council, can appeal to the Scottish Executive against that decision. In this consultation we ask whether others who are affected by planning decisions should be allowed a right to appeal.
The issues are not straight-forward; indeed they are extremely complex. Scotland needs new development; it always has done. Growing the economy is the Executive's top priority. Development helps bring jobs, services, facilities and simple home comforts that we often take for granted. Our land use planning system is charged with enabling development to happen and guiding it to the right locations, while also ensuring that inappropriate and unnecessary development does not take place. However, our planning system is not perfect. It is often criticised, in some cases rightly, for being too slow and cumbersome and for stifling jobs and opportunities. But planning decisions have consequences that are not easily reversed and it is essential that the implications of development for the economy, the environment and communities are fully and widely understood before these decisions are taken.
We are already taking steps to modernise the planning system through our consultation on modernising planning inquiries and through the progress we have made with Councils on e-planning. The consultation paper Making Development Plans Deliver brings forward our proposals for making development plans more effective in delivering land use change. We will also be publishing a National Planning Framework, which marks an important first step in addressing the challenges of Scotland's long-term development.
We made it clear in our Partnership Agreement that we are determined to speed up the planning process overall. In many cases it takes far too long to get from the point of proposing new development to getting a decision on whether it can proceed. And time spent waiting for a planning permission is time not spent doing business, or enjoying new facilities, or providing important public services.
Without significant reform of the system overall, extending the right of appeal in planning has the potential to create further delays. And delays do have costs for business and society. The challenge is to reduce cost and delay while ensuring that people and communities feel their voice has been heard on decisions that they believe will damage their environment or way of life. But sometimes people want an opportunity to challenge what they see as bad decisions and environmental injustice. Competing expectations of planning will be difficult to reconcile, but any new right of appeal, if there is to be one, must fit with our clear objective to improve the efficiency of the planning system. The decision on whether to extend the right of appeal will be made in the context of our wider programme of modernisation. We want a planning system that serves the needs of Scotland in the 21 st Century.
On this and related consultations on the reform and modernisation of the planning system, our final decisions will be made on the basis of sound evidence. Your views are a key factor and I would urge you to engage in this debate and share your thoughts and experiences with us. Your views are important. We are listening.
MARGARET CURRAN MSP
Minister for Communities