The independent review of the Scottish planning system has failed to address rural issues, according to Scottish Land & Estates and Savills.
Debbie Mackay, rural planning director at Savills, said: “The word ‘rural’ secures only two minor mentions in the whole report. In a country where around 90% of the land mass is undeveloped, and which has some of the most remote and inaccessible communities in the whole of Europe, the vitality of rural areas must become a much greater priority for the Scottish government.
“We still have an urban-centric planning style being inappropriately applied in many rural areas across Scotland. These proposed reforms do little to tackle the inequalities this approach creates.”
Ten years on from the enactment of the Planning etc. (Scotland) Act 2006, the review, by Crawford Beveridge, Petra Biberbach and John Hamilton, has provided Scottish ministers with 48 recommendations.
It focuses on six themes – development planning; housing delivery; planning for infrastructure; development management; leadership, resourcing and skills; and community engagement.
But while Katy Dickson, policy officer at Scottish Land & Estates, welcomed highlighting the need for innovative housing delivery, she said it was a concern that the report did not address planning concerns found in rural areas.
Mackay added: “On a more positive note, there is a strong sense of the need for action and significant change and the panel seems to have grasped this. The cross references with the land reform agenda represents a welcome rebalancing following an over-focus within the debate on land ownership as the sole issue affecting delivery of housing development.”
She said that the government needed to encourage lending institutions to “step up to the mark” and produce funding arrangements which suit this less mainstream approach to housing.
Click here to read the full review.
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