ANNEX C: REPORTS OF PRE-LEGISLATIVE EVENTS

Modernising The Planning System: The Community Perspective, 29 October 2005

OPENING REMARKS
MODERNISING THE PLANNING SYSTEM
MEANINGFUL PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Mr Nick Wright (Planning Aid for Scotland)
Mr John Arthur
Mrs Joyce Simpson (Cairngorms National Park Authority/Grantown-on-Spey Community Council)
Mr Dave Simmers (Travellers Education and Information Project)
Ms Margaret Armstrong
Mr David Cowling (Auchtermuchty and Strathmiglo Community Council)
Mrs Nan McFarlane (South Ayrshire Elderly Forums)
Mr Forbes Maginnis (Scottish Youth Parliament)
Mrs Ann Coleman (Greengairs Community Council/Greengairs Environmental Forum)
Mrs Jean Charsley (Hillhead Community Council)
Mr George Butler (Mearns Community Council)
Mrs Barbara Harvey (Abronhill Mast Relocation Group)
Mr Euan Page (Disability Rights Commission)
Mrs Penelope Sinclair (Southbank Court Residents Association)
Mr James Buchan
Mr David Middleton (Central St Andrews Residents Alliance)
Ms Anne McCall (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds)
Mr Terry Levinthal (Scottish Civic Trust)
Mr Peter Spinney (Mugdock Residents Association)
Miss Elizabeth Murray
Mr Alastair Kennedy (City and Royal Burgh of Elgin Community Council)
Dr Angela Flanagan
Mr James Milligan
Mr Barry Teasdale (Peebles Civic Society)

Opening Remarks

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Murray Tosh): Good morning. I welcome you to the Communities Committee’s event on modernising the planning system: the community perspective. We hold events of this nature in order to try to bring the Parliament a bit closer to the public at large and to people from all over Scotland. The decision to hold the conference—and particularly to use the chamber for it—reflects the importance that the Communities Committee attaches to listening to the views of communities throughout Scotland on important issues such as planning policy, which is coming to the top of the political agenda.

As Steve Farrell explained before we began, we will run the event pretty much as we run parliamentary debates. The principle differences are that I will struggle to pick out names in relation to faces and that the chamber will be full because you do not have offices to go to during the day. I am sure that you will not be looking to wander off; like the members of the Communities Committee, you are here because of the importance that you attach to this most important subject.

The clerks to the Communities Committee have been preparing for the conference since May—it is a huge logistical undertaking—and we have a good turnout of committee members, so you should be in no doubt that the committee also attaches great importance to the matter. The committee is conscious of the concern about the relationship between the public and the planning process and the importance that we all attach to trying to build a more robust system that will command greater public confidence.

I hand over to the convener of the Communities Committee, Karen Whitefield MSP, who will give you a fuller introduction to the event.

Karen Whitefield (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab): Good morning. I am going to stand up because, as a mere back bencher in the Scottish Parliament, not only am I not used to being up here on the podium, but I am not used to sitting down to talk to people. Standing up will allow me to feel just a little bit more comfortable.

On behalf of all the members of the Communities Committee, I welcome you to the committee’s event on planning. Any of you who listened to Radio Scotland this morning will have heard Ken Macdonald suggesting that today’s event might be rather dull and boring. I certainly hope that that will not be the case and I assure you that the committee does not regard the issue as dull and boring. I would go as far as to say that we are quite excited about the prospect of scrutinising the forthcoming planning legislation.

Like you, every member of the Communities Committee is acutely aware that Scotland’s planning laws affect the communities in which we live and work and I am pleased that the majority of them are here today. I would like to introduce each member to you. To my right is Patrick Harvie, a member of the Scottish Green Party. Cathie Craigie is the Labour Party member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth. Next to her is Scott Barrie, the member for Dunfermline West. Next to Mr Barrie is Mary Scanlon, a Conservative member for the Highlands and Islands. Next to Mary is John Home Robertson, the member for East Lothian. At the very end is Jim Mackinnon, from whom we will hear shortly.

The Scottish Executive has recognised that the time for change is now. The Communities Committee will take the opportunity to scrutinise the Executive’s proposals robustly and to amend them where appropriate. That is why today’s event is so important. Any changes that the committee will make will come about because of the evidence that we hear over the next few months.

Today is the start of the process. We want to hear your views on the proposals to modernise Scotland’s planning system. There can be no more appropriate way for the Communities Committee to start than by listening to people from all parts of Scotland who have experience and expert knowledge of Scotland’s planning laws.

As far as members of the Communities Committee are concerned, today’s event is very much about listening. Although we might ask questions of clarification at various points throughout the day, we primarily want to hear your concerns and views. I hope that not only members will be listening to today’s events, but that people who are not able to be here will watch the live webcast. In addition to that, a report of the event will be produced, and it will be included as an annex to the Communities Committee’s stage 1 report on the forthcoming bill. It will also be available on the committee’s pages of the Scottish Parliament website.

I will take you through some of the key points of today’s programme. As I mentioned, we are joined this morning by Jim Mackinnon, the Scottish Executive’s chief planner. Shortly, he will give a presentation on modernising the planning process and the Executive’s proposals. The intention is that Jim will contextualise today’s event. Following the presentation, there will be a debate about meaningful public participation in the planning process.

It is anticipated that we will break for lunch at 12.30. Following lunch, each of us will join the workshop that we have selected before returning to the chamber to hear feedback from all the groups. We hope that the event will conclude at 4.30, after a productive and constructive day of engagement. I am grateful to you all for attending.

Modernising the Planning System

The Deputy Presiding Officer: It is my pleasure to introduce Jim Mackinnon, the chief planner at the Scottish Executive. As chief planner, he is a pretty senior civil servant. It is no exaggeration to say that he is one of the most accessible civil servants that parliamentarians deal with. The project of modernising the planning process has been at the centre of his remit since he assumed his current position. I am delighted to welcome him to give us a presentation on the Executive’s proposals for modernising the planning process.

Jim Mackinnon (Chief Planner, Scottish Executive): Thank you, Murray and Karen. I am very grateful for this opportunity to explain the Executive’s proposals. There has been some mischief making around them, so I hope that I can provide a clear context for what is an important discussion and debate as the legislative process on planning reform begins.

There are four elements to the Executive’s commitment to reform and modernise the planning system, but there are essentially two issues. First, is the planning system efficient? Secondly, is it inclusive?

On efficiency, most parts of Scotland have a local plan, and every part has a structure plan. However, more than 40 per cent of local plans in Scotland are more than 10 years out of date. Their preparation probably started in the late 1980s or early 1990s. That is not a basis for modern and efficient development control.

On development control, there are published targets for the performance of both the Executive and planning authorities. The Executive’s planning divisions and the inquiry reporters actually do quite well against those targets. Against a target of having to determine 80 per cent of applications within two months, local authorities generally come in at a percentage in the middle 60s. There are some councils that perform much better than that and others that are at the other end of the spectrum. One of the other parliamentary committees—the Finance Committee, which carried out a cross-cutting review of expenditure on economic development—pointed out that the percentage of major planning applications determined within, I think, four months had reduced from more than 50 per cent to well under 40 per cent.

I do not think that there is a case for saying that the planning system is efficient, but it is inclusive?

My starting point is that more rights are guaranteed by statute in planning than in any other area of public policy. People can contribute and make their views known on structure plans and local plans. There is provision for public inquiry into objections, neighbour notification, press adverts and statutory consultation with community councils, and many councils operate a system of council and committee hearings.

However, many people feel that there are significant barriers to participation and they do not have confidence in the decision making. They argue that they are not aware of what is happening in their area and that they find documents inaccessible; I absolutely buy into that. The procedures are perceived by many to be complex. People feel that they lack expertise, but I have seen in many communities across Scotland a fantastic level of expertise developed on specific issues—in some cases, more than exists in the local authority.

There is also a feeling that views are not taken into account. I have studied planning reports from the length and breadth of Scotland, I have seen planning officials faithfully and accurately reporting what individuals, groups and organisations have said on planning applications, and I have witnessed councils listening to those reports and to the evidence presented and coming to a view. People may feel that their views are not being taken into account because they did not get the decision that they wanted, but what I see throughout Scotland is a genuine effort to listen. However, that does not mean that people will be satisfied by the outcome.

There is a clear case to answer on efficiency, but there is deep frustration about the ability to influence planning policy and decisions. We have carried out extensive consultation on planning over the past few years, and that was the basis on which we went to Cabinet last December. Ministers felt that we had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform the planning system and that we needed to be more radical and push out the boundaries, because no one believes that the planning system is functioning well at the moment.

We came up with four main categories. We want a system that is fit for purpose, efficient, inclusive and capable of delivering sustainable development. Ministers perceived that all applications—whether for the Royal Bank of Scotland’s world headquarters or for a conservatory attached to someone’s house—were going through the same sausage machine at the same rate. They felt that there was a lack of clarity about what central Government did and what local government did. It was alleged that there had been a power grab by Scottish ministers as a result of the proposals, but Malcolm Chisholm told Patrick Harvie when the white paper was announced that he thought that that was a travesty of the truth. The new proposals are not about a power grab to the centre, but about devolution of decision making to locally elected councils and about seeking to remove from planning control matters for which planning permission really should not be required.

Some people here may be aware of Scotland’s first ever national planning framework, which was produced last April—18 months ago—and was received very well. It set out a long-term view of how Scotland was developing as a place, but what it did not have was a hard edge. What was the link between the strategy and individual proposals and decisions? As a result of that exercise—and this is related to what I said about the Finance Committee’s review—ministers wanted the national planning framework to set a context for project implementation. So what we are talking about, essentially, is national infrastructure projects in transport, waste, water and drainage. Ministers have been at pains to make it absolutely clear that the national planning framework will not decide on the location of nuclear power stations. That is simply not on the agenda.

We are aware that one of the issues that people find particularly divisive in Scotland at the moment is renewable energy. That is why we announced an early review of our planning policy on that. We expect that to move into the public domain as a consultative draft in the new year, ideally before next spring.

The Communities Committee is taking a growing interest in a number of strategic development priorities and I suspect that this is one that it will scrutinise in particular. I would like to think that the results of work on the SDP could feed into the national planning framework.
One of the messages that we want to get across is the fact that renewable energy is not only about wind turbines. Scotland has the potential to develop tidal power, wave power and biomass energy. We are talking about national projects that are identified in the national planning framework. Those decisions will be taken by the Executive and there will be an opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny, a consultative draft and strategic environmental assessment.

Essentially, we want to ensure that the public inquiry process runs more smoothly. We do not think that it is appropriate for a reporter to consider, for example, whether there should be a Borders railway, because that has been dealt with by the Executive and the Parliament. The reporter should be concerned with siting, design and environmental impact, but not the principle.

In the interest of jobs, homes and a range of facilities for communities across Scotland, it is absolutely critical that major applications are delivered. However, as I mentioned, the performance of planning authorities in dealing with those applications has declined.

We are proposing that a contract should be drawn up between the developer and the planning authority to ensure, not that planning permission will be granted, but that, if all the information is present and prior consultation has been carried out with communities, a decision can be expected in a reasonable period of time. For that, there will have to be a fee increase—there is no doubt about that. Recently, I met an investor in Edinburgh who is about to invest in a £200 million development. The planning fee is £10,000 but he said that he would be happy to pay a fee of £100,000 in order to achieve a high-quality service. Decisions will be taken by the planning authority and any right of appeal will involve inquiry reporters and the courts.

There are 52,000 planning applications in Scotland at the moment. As a result of our proposed reforms, 51,500 will remain with local authorities. However, there are significant changes. For proposals that raise significant issues, such as environmental concerns, and which generate local objections, the decision will be made by the committee of the planning authority. The appeal will, as at present, go to the inquiry reporters unit. If there are issues about the law, the appeal will go to the courts.

Non-controversial proposals will go to officials. There will be a scheme of delegation in every council in Scotland that will delegate straightforward decisions to the officials. If planning permission is refused, there will be a right of appeal. That right of appeal will go to the local council. At the moment, around 50 per cent of all appeals are for extremely minor developments, such as hot-food shops, boundary walls, house extensions and so on. I know that some councils are concerned about the fact that unelected officials from Edinburgh come to their area and make decisions that fly in the face not only of the planning authority, but of local communities’ opinions.

A substantial range of minor developments affect the planning system. Some of them are adequately controlled under other legislation, so we need to have a wide-ranging review of what is called permitted development.

On development planning, at the moment every part of Scotland has a structure plan—even remote, rural areas where there are few people and where there is little in the way of development pressure. We took the view—which was welcomed by most councils in remote, rural areas—that there should not be a requirement for two tiers of plan in areas such as the Western Isles and Dumfries and Galloway.

There will be a higher-level plan in the four largest city regions, because those are the areas where there are genuine cross-border issues to address. There has to be some degree of arbitration. Edinburgh is a growing city, and there are issues for the Borders, East Lothian, West Lothian, Midlothian and Fife. We need to consider the city regions more widely. Even if one is living in an area where the priority is regeneration, such as Dundee or Glasgow, if land is being allocated for housing in prosperous areas outwith the cities, that has a knock-on effect on regeneration. So, that is efficiency in development planning.

We are also talking about efficiency in development management. We will review permitted development. What I mean by that is that general planning permission is granted for a wide range of minor developments in Scotland; there are something like 67 or 68 minor classes. We are asking whether all those classes require planning permission. That is essentially deregulatory. I know, however, that many communities throughout Scotland have been exercised by issues such as mobile phone masts, hill tracks and what Scottish Water is able to do, so this will be a fundamental review of minor development in Scotland. We have commissioned research, and there will be consultation, as well as scrutiny by the committee.

We will consider planning and heritage consents. If someone lives in a listed building in a conservation area and they want to do something to their property, they might find that they require three permissions, and that—certainly outwith the largest cities—it is essentially the same person in the same department who considers the same issues. There is scope for simplifying that and making it more efficient. We want to change the position on first-party appeals. I mentioned that the appeals for small-scale cases will go to local councillors. We will reduce the timescale for appeal from six months to three months. We will introduce what is called “early determination” of appeals. By that I mean that the appeal will come to the Executive, and if the council has taken a decision that sits on all fours with its development plan and there are no other significant material considerations, the chances are that that appeal will simply be returned.

We are also talking about moving away from what is called an appeal, to a decision review. What happens at the moment is that some investors see the reasons for the council’s decision and think, “We can change our proposal.” What comes before the reporter is then potentially significantly different from what was presented to the planning authority. We will not allow that. If someone really wants to change a proposal they will require to submit a fresh application, which will be subject to neighbour notification and community consultation. We are talking about a significant reduction in the burden of work facing the planning authority. The information that comes before the planning authority will be the same information that comes before the reporter. We will also prescribe the method of determination, making much more use of written submissions and informal hearings, as opposed to public inquiries, which are often dominated by consultants, experts and the legal fraternity.

Another element of reform is inclusion and awareness. That is not less important than efficiency; efficiency and inclusion are twin pillars. We need to raise awareness of what the planning system can—and arguably cannot—do. We will draw up a planning advice note, and we will work with local authorities, developers and communities, because there is fantastic good practice out there in Scotland. We want to achieve a lot in this area, but I am not sure how much can be done by legislation. Ann Coleman from Greengairs is here, and she regularly talks to me using words such as trust, integrity and honesty. I absolutely agree, but try legislating for those things. It is about improving public trust and confidence in the planning system. I am sure that some of you here today will receive invitations from us to participate in drawing up the advice note, to demonstrate what does and does not work.

We want more inclusion measures in development planning. There will be consultation on the national planning framework. A development plan scheme will be drawn up by every planning authority in Scotland, indicating not just the programme for plan preparation, but how they will seek to involve local communities in that.

We will look for early and targeted engagement—the idea is to move away from consultation towards engagement—and we will require neighbour notification of key proposals in the development plan. At public inquiries, the reporter will not simply assess objections, but take into account what the planning authority has done to engage with stakeholders. If the reporter is not satisfied with that engagement, he will have the power to return the plan to the council and say, “No, you must do more and you must do better.” We want a modernised, less adversarial type of inquiry in which people feel that they participate in a discussion, dialogue and debate rather than feel subjected to an interrogation.

We will introduce a statutory duty for pre-application discussions for all developments that are significantly contrary to the development plan, are subject to environmental assessment or constitute a “bad neighbour” development. Before a planning application for such a development is lodged, communities will be given the opportunity to engage with the developer. If the planning authority is not satisfied that that has been provided, it may decline to register the application.

Neighbour notification will become the responsibility of the planning authority. Planning authorities are not terribly comfortable with that proposal, but I know that the current system can leave many people in communities feeling terribly frustrated. At the moment—especially in the area that Mary Scanlon represents—when people receive the slip of paper through the door, on turning up at the local planning office they often discover that they cannot see the plans and drawings there.

As well as providing additional time for commenting on planning applications, we will introduce requirements on how hearings should be conducted. Current practice is too diverse and variable, so we will ensure that there is a consistent approach to how local authorities conduct hearings. We will also require councils to give reasons, not just for refusals but for all decisions.

We will also scrutinise departures from local plans. At the moment, only major applications that depart from the structure plan are required to be notified to Scottish ministers. In future, departures from local plans will also need to be referred to the Executive.

On enforcement, which has recently risen up the political agenda both locally and nationally, the feeling that planning control is honoured more in the breach than in the observance impinges on people’s faith in the planning system. For that reason, we will require councils to draw up a local charter to set out the services that they intend to provide. Higher fees will be required for retrospective applications. We will introduce a start notice, which should be a trigger for a more proactive approach to enforcement. We will introduce temporary stop notices, which will make it much easier to stop development if a council finds, say, that the operator is working outwith controlled hours or doing other prohibited things such as blasting. The level of fines will be reviewed to ensure that they are commensurate with the degree of breach. In addition, we will introduce good neighbour agreements, which will allow community involvement in monitoring the impact of development.

Remember that the planning system exists for a purpose, which is to promote good development and to maintain and enhance quality environments. For that reason, the bill will include provisions on tree preservation orders, the built heritage and on the mainstreaming of strategic environmental assessment into plans. It will also contain measures—I know that this is of particular concern to Karen Whitefield, Cathie Craigie and other people from Lanarkshire—on the cumulative impact of developments, such as opencast coal and waste, on particular communities.

I must be careful with the next slide, as Cathie Craigie has warned me not to say anything inappropriate about Cumbernauld town centre. In the post-war period, people essentially had tremendous faith in the ability of planning to change people’s lives for the better, but few would now regard the developments that are shown on the slide as having changed life for the better. Consequently, planners tended to become better at saying no to developments. Often, there were good reasons for saying no, not least to preserve the setting of some of our finest cities, towns and villages. However, we have embarked on a much more positive agenda for planning that aims to create what Sam Galbraith referred to as the conservation areas of tomorrow. Throughout Scotland, both in urban and rural areas, there are signs that that is happening.

The Executive is facing some major delivery challenges. As Murray Tosh will no doubt be aware, the planning bill will be difficult and controversial as the issue is one on which people do not split easily along party-political lines. For better or worse, everyone has views on the planning system, so the bill will be an interesting piece of legislation to take through. Not everything will be in the bill; there will also be supporting secondary legislation, guidance and advice. I suspect that our next national planning framework will be a much more difficult and controversial document than the first. The Executive will need to deal with increased casework and more controversial inquiries and appeals.

Planning is a local authority function. The 32 councils in Scotland and the two national park authorities will be the focus of attention in delivering the planning reform agenda. We have good networks with our local authorities in Scotland and we want to build on them and involve local communities in the reform process, because we must get the detail right. We have made a successful bid for money from the efficient government fund to allow us to e-enable planning throughout Scotland. For the first time, we have a planning development budget, which will be used to upskill people in planning departments. However, issues will arise about resources for planning, the level of additional resource that is required for the reform and how it can most effectively be targeted. We will put on a statutory footing our programme of auditing planning authorities and, where cases of improper decision making are found, ministers will have the power to investigate them.

We talk a lot about process, legislation and procedure, but at the heart of the reformed planning system must be a culture change. Politicians will have to ensure that they want to take difficult decisions in leading the reform agenda nationally and locally, and planners as a profession need to think about the way in which we work—that is not just an attack on local government colleagues. We must get away from the idea that simply writing long reports or providing lots of conditions on planning applications and decisions makes a difference. I would much rather a planning authority put five conditions on a planning permission and enforced them, than put on 50 and enforced none.

The development industry must change, too. It must be much more prepared to work with local communities at the outset, before plans are finalised. Developers should not consult communities on proposals, but say, “We’re thinking of building housing here and this is how we are thinking of doing it. What are your views on that?” Consultees must recognise that, although there is a planning agenda to deliver, it is important that they engage with the system of quicker development plans and more efficient development control decisions. The planning schools, which are also stakeholders, must think much more about what they are teaching.

At the heart of the proposals is the fact that we want to put development plans centre stage to move the debate on planning upstream. We do not have a magic wand to ensure that plans are prepared timeously and kept up to date, although there will be a statutory requirement that they be updated every five years. To reach our aim, we need four main changes. First, we need much better management of the process, both politically and administratively. Secondly, we need better and more effective engagement with communities as plans are taken through. Thirdly, the plans need a sharper focus. There is no point in producing plans in thick documents that people do not want to read and fail to understand if we expect people to value planning. We must accept that a development plan is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. The message is that development plans matter. I hope that we can take measures so that the process and content of development planning inspire confidence.

What has the reaction been to the white paper? We have had a major programme of seminars, workshops and conferences the length and breadth of Scotland—earlier this week, I was in Stornoway. There is recognition that the proposals are a package and not pick and mix. If people want to add elements, they need to think about what elements they might wish to take out. The reaction has been generally supportive and, in some cases, enthusiastic. People believe that the Executive has not ducked the issues and that it has tried to put together a package that will address concerns across the spectrum. We have received more than 300 responses—a particularly good response for a planning consultation—which have been assessed independently.

There are still fault lines over the package: one relates to the right of appeal for third parties and the other relates to independent testing of the national planning framework. However, by and large, the other concerns are about issues of detail, such as the capacity and perhaps the willingness of local authorities to carry out the reforms. A strong belief is held that strengthened enforcement in planning is needed. Some nervousness is felt about local appeals tribunals and the development industry is nervous about proposals to restrict the scope of appeals. Councils are pretty unhappy about the responsibility for neighbour notification being given to them. It is also felt that we need to keep the term “outline planning permission”. We can do that and try to make the process simpler.

Delegates will be pleased to know that I am just about to finish. The reforms are significant. They aim to provide a planning system that will allow the jobs, homes, schools, hospitals and—yes—integrated waste management facilities, young offenders institutions and drug offender clinics that must go through such a system. We need to balance that with protecting and enhancing the quality of our natural and built heritage.

I do not pretend or promise that everyone will get what they want from the reforms, but I hope that, as a result of them, communities will be more confident that the process by which policies and decisions are made has been open and fair.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: I thank Jim Mackinnon for that full explanation not just of what the Executive proposes to do in reforming the planning system, but of much of the rationale that underlies the reform.

Meaningful Public Participation

The Deputy Presiding Officer: We will proceed to debate public participation in the planning process. The debate will cover three general subjects. First, how can the Executive’s proposals for public participation be put into practice? Secondly, will the Executive’s proposals address the difficulties that communities face? Thirdly, are the Executive’s proposals adequate to ensure meaningful public participation? It is clear that all those subjects will overlap, but we will try to have three structured debates, each of which will be introduced by a different speaker, who will speak for about five minutes before I open the debate to other participants.

How do you get to speak? You all have a console in front of you that has a big, almost-oval button at the bottom. I do not want you to press it yet. When you wish to speak in the debate, you press that button, which brings your name up on my screen. I will be able to call individuals by name. If the little green light above the button on your console flashes, you will know that your request to speak has been registered. If it does not flash, your name is not on my screen. I will ask each person to speak for a maximum of three minutes. As an aid—not all my MSP colleagues appreciate that this is meant to be helpful—I will lean over and say, “One minute,” when there is one minute to go. That will help speakers to know that their time is running out.

Please do not start to speak until the microphone is live. The red light on my microphone stalk is illuminated because the microphone is on. When I switch the microphone off, the red light disappears. If you wait to speak until the red light is on, none of your words will be lost.

Unless to do so is a physical problem, I would like you to stand when you speak. That helps people to identify you more easily and also helps with sound projection. The microphones move. The further that you move from the bulb, the less distinct your voice becomes. Try to lift the microphone stalk to a point at your diaphragm, where it picks up the best volume. Try not to speak away to the side, because that weakens the volume considerably.

When people speak, someone might want to intervene—we do that in Parliament. If you want to intervene on someone’s speech, just stand and ask whoever is speaking whether they will take an intervention. Whether to accept an intervention is up to the speaker. If you are allowed to make an intervention, please be very brief, because you will eat into the speaker’s time. Do not stand up and deliver a speech—just ask a question or make a brief point. Those are all the rules. We will see how we get on with them.

Each subject will be debated for just under half an hour. I call Nick Wright from Planning Aid for Scotland to launch the first debate, which is on how the Executive’s proposals for public participation can be put into practice.

Mr Nick Wright (Planning Aid for Scotland): I would like to contribute a few thoughts and questions for the first part of our debate on meaningful public participation in the planning system to try to help set the agenda for the first half an hour.

I would like to start by explaining a little bit about Planning Aid for Scotland. We aim to help people to have their say in planning matters. Our vision is of a fair, transparent and responsive planning system in which communities and individuals can participate effectively. We are a national non-campaigning organisation and provide people with free, impartial and independent advice on how they can engage with the planning system. Our role is an enabling one; we are not consultants and we do not do the work for people. We try to give people the knowledge and confidence to engage with the system themselves. We have a network of around 100 volunteers, most of whom are, like me, professionally qualified planners, who give freely of their time.

In our experience, people often do not get in touch with us until it is too late for them to have any real influence. For example, a site might already be earmarked for development in a local plan when someone finds out about a proposal for it, but at that stage the principle of such a proposal has already been established. To encourage people to get involved at the right time and in the right way, we provide training, through our planning for people programme, as well as advice. We try to break down the mystique that surrounds planning and explain how the system works and how to get involved.

Over the years, Planning Aid volunteers have discussed planning matters with people from Shetland all the way down to Stranraer. Some of them are here today. During that time, we have built up huge experience of the challenges that people face when they try to participate in the planning system. Clearly, such information is potentially of great benefit to the Executive in preparing its proposals and to the Parliament as it seeks to reform the system. Identifying the barriers to participation under the current system is one way in which we can start to make things better.

From our experience, what challenges do the public face? I have identified five main challenges, which are similar to the ones that Jim Mackinnon mentioned earlier in his presentation. I will run through them and I hope that they will start to make people think of experiences that they have had.

First, many people are simply unaware of the planning system. For each of us present today, there are thousands of others who have never even thought about the relevance of planning to them and their local areas. Secondly, the system is complicated, even for professional planners such as me. Many people simply do not understand how it works. How can we ensure that people have sufficient knowledge and ability to engage properly with the new planning system?

Thirdly, the language can be very exclusive. Words and phrases such as “amenity” and “material considerations” are planning jargon; they make sense to a few people but deter far more. Fourthly, it takes time, energy and commitment for people to understand the system and to engage in planning. How can we make the system more user-friendly in the future? Fifthly, we frequently encounter mistrust—a word that has already come up—between local communities and local authority planners and elected members, as well as developers. Planning Aid uses its independence and impartiality to help to build trust. However, how else can we encourage more respect and openness in the system?

I ask delegates to take a moment to think back on their own experience with the planning system. They may have read policies and plans, discussed their concerns with planners or organised a community group. What worked well from delegates’ point of view? What did not work? I ask delegates to try to think of the positives as well as the negatives, because those will help us to take things forward.

I also ask delegates to think forward to how things might be under the new system that Jim Mackinnon described earlier. I suggest that we think about the way in which the reforms will address the barriers to participation—the five barriers that I mentioned earlier—and whether the new system will allow the public the opportunity to be involved early enough in the process for them to influence emerging plans and proposals.

Perhaps the most critical question of all is whether the new system will succeed in making people feel that they have a sense of ownership in the future planning of their communities.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: Thank you. Before I introduced Nick Wright, I neglected to ask delegates who wish to speak in this session to press their request-to-speak button. I ask
everyone who wishes to speak to press their request-to-speak button now.

Mr John Arthur: I am a Leith historian and the vice chairman of Leith Community Council. Today, I am speaking on my own behalf, as the community council has not yet had the opportunity to discuss the matter.

Throughout the centuries, Leith has developed and changed. However, the greatest change came around 250 years ago, with the beginnings of the industrial revolution and the development of factories—we could say that modern business methods came to the area at that time. The development of Leith attracted people from the land into the town and developers simply threw up housing to meet the new demand. However, within a few years, that housing had become slums. At the time, people in the community were never consulted or asked how they wanted the town to be developed.

There was a repeat performance in the late 19th century, with the passing of the Leith Improvement Act 1880. Again, although thousands of houses were demolished, the community was not consulted. In 1920, despite a plebiscite in favour of Leith remaining independent, the result was simply ignored and Leith was amalgamated into Edinburgh.

In the 1960s, Leith was redeveloped again and one of its major streets, the Kirkgate, and the surrounding area were demolished. Again, the demolition proceeded despite public protests from the community. The high-rise flats that were built were not only out of place with the character of the area but resulted in social problems such as vandalism and drug addiction.

Those examples cover a period of almost 250 years, during which the community was never considered. That process continues up to the present.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: One minute.

Mr Arthur: Good grief—that was quick.  A consultation process is in place nowadays and developers must follow it by law. However, because recommendations are not enforceable, many developers look on consultation merely as a form of public relations. Developers go through the motions knowing perfectly well that they do not have to follow the rules of consultation and can simply ignore communities. They do something because they think that it looks good—they simply carry on regardless. Over time, communities have become disillusioned because their views have simply been ignored.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: Thank you. Incidentally, it was helpful that John Arthur said where he is from. It would be equally helpful if all other speakers were to do so.

Mrs Joyce Simpson (Cairngorms National Park Authority/Grantown-on-Spey Community Council): I am a member of the Cairngorms National Park Authority board and a member of the Association of Cairngorms Community Councils, which represents all the community councils in the park area. I will waste a second or two to welcome the fact that the Scottish Parliament has given us the opportunity to come together as community councils. It is very encouraging for community council members to be able to make the points that we will make today.

I will talk about the general power of consultation that is given to community councils. Often, we feel beleaguered; we are constantly consulted and asked to give our community’s views, but we do not have the time or resources to do so. Normally, the time that is available to us allows us only to give the view of the community council itself. Sometimes that is okay, but sometimes it is not. If the wider views are needed or if the community council does not know what response to give, the question arises, “What should we do?”

I will tell delegates about the experience of community councils in the Cairngorms in the lead-up to the establishment of the national park. There is a cheap and simple way of reaching many more people other than through community councils.

Scottish Natural Heritage was charged with undertaking a consultation in our area to see whether we wanted a park. There were two rounds to the consultation. It was done in the normal way the first time and SNH held some meetings. During the second round, however, the community councils said, “No, that isn’t good enough,” and agreed with SNH a form of local consultation that suited each community council. The fact that the scheme worked was shown in the independent Rettie report to SNH in 2001, which stated that 10 times more people responded in writing and 600 per cent more people were involved in the consultation. How did we do that? Local facilitators were trained and paid to work with the community councils so that they could do a much wider consultation that was appropriate to each area. The lessons learned from that were, first, that community views are diverse and sometimes difficult to summarise. However, that work can be done if trained facilitators are used. Secondly, it emerged that community councils are not able to conduct consultations without such help. Thirdly, one gets a much larger response to such consultations, which means that there is a much greater acceptance of the results. Finally, it is not expensive; it cost less than £500 per community.

The next time that people are consulted, I ask them to think about whether they need help. If they need the help of facilitators, perhaps they should ask for it. I hope that the Scottish Executive takes that on board.

Mr Dave Simmers (Travellers Education and Information Project): I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today and I am glad to be here to say a few words about the interests of the Gypsy Traveller community.

It is generally agreed that Gypsy Travellers face a disproportionate difficulty with the planning system. The Commission for Racial Equality has stated publicly that Gypsy Travellers are the final group against which it is acceptable to discriminate and that things are said publicly about Gypsy Travellers that no other minority group experiences.

Central to the concept of democracy, of which the planning process is a part, is that minority interests are catered for and that the notion of equity—I use the word “equity” advisedly, as opposed to the word “equality”—underlies the system. The planning framework is effective only in a wider policy context. The Parliament’s Equal Opportunities Committee has done marvellous work in its inquiry into Gypsy Travellers. One of the issues that the committee raised was the need for central Government, both at UK and Scottish level, to set the framework, sometimes in statute, for provision for Gypsy Travellers to be realised. If provision is left to the local level, nimbyism will prevail.

Communities Scotland regulates provision for Gypsy Travellers. Its performance standard states that local authorities should “plan and provide or arrange good quality serviced stopping places for Gypsies/Travellers”.

Most Travellers who travel would prefer transit sites—basic, informal, low-cost stopping places with hard-standing, water, a skip and Portaloos. Some forward-thinking local authorities, such as Fife, Moray and Aberdeenshire, are looking to establish such sites.

The Executive rightly seeks planning permission before transit sites are established. Some £3 million has been allocated, but getting planning permission will be hard because of nimbyism at the local level.

The planning issues for Travellers concern the transit sites that I described, as well as official and private sites. A group of Traveller families in Aberdeen wanted planning permission to set up home on a private site. There was press hysteria, with the press asking, “How dare they?” because there was an official site. However, no one wanted to use it. When private individuals buy land and request planning permission to build a house, no one says, “There are council houses down the road—please go there.”

In consultations, it is important to recognise that Travellers have faced virulent discrimination and prejudice from us over many years and that they are suspicious of us. If we are serious about consulting the Gypsy Traveller community and engaging it in the planning processes, we need to look at the ways in which we do that. Gypsy Travellers are an oral community. Mr Mackinnon was right to say that huge documents do not work generally, and they do not work for the Gypsy Traveller community. We need to consider using projects such as the one that I co-ordinate—the Traveller Education and Information Project—to create a bridge between the Gypsy Traveller community, the authorities and the settled community.

Ms Margaret Armstrong: Good morning. Thank you for inviting me here today. I am from Croy G65—not Ayrshire or Inverness-shire. We started out in Dunbartonshire. We went from there to Cumbernauld and Kilsyth District Council, whose gaffers were Strathclyde Regional Council. Believe me, divide and rule was very successful.

This debate is about modernising the planning system. MSPs could all go down in history, because the biggest planning issue with which they will have to deal is the nuclear waste disposal that we are being fed drip by drip. We should think carefully about what we are leaving for our children and our children’s children. That comes from the heart. No one has yet solved the problem. I do not think that, as members of the human race, we are entitled to jeopardise our children’s future.

Will the proposals work? Will solutions be found? There should be meaningful public participation, but there must also be effective preparation. Sufficient time must be scheduled and there must be sufficient funding. Funding is the main issue, because the money is not devolved. Communities, especially deprived communities, are handicapped, because they never start on a level playing field with the professionals. That must be accounted for. MSPs must get the system right and spend money to ensure that the communities that deal with planning issues are on a level playing field with the professionals. No professionals live in deprived areas. We ask only that MSPs do what their conscience tells them and think of future generations. The system will work—hope springs eternal.

Mr David Cowling (Auchtermuchty and Strathmiglo Community Council): I am the secretary of the Auchtermuchty and Strathmiglo community council in Fife. I am a town planner, although I have “retired” after my name. I am also a fairly passionate believer in devolved democracy. By that I mean not just devolved democracy from Westminster to this splendid building, but devolved democracy that embraces those of us out there who are the great unwashed. We are awkward and do not always fit into the spaces with which you provide us or the public consultations that you afford us. Sometimes we end up disagreeing profoundly with you—not you personally, Presiding Officer, but the system. We have to work out how we are going to represent ourselves at local planning inquiries, public inquiries, departure hearings and all the rest. We then go up with our little wooden swords against all that the Executive, local authority or developer can throw at us. If this democracy is to work, we need you to afford us resources. We need you to afford us resources sometimes to disagree with you.

Mrs Nan McFarlane (South Ayrshire Elderly Forums): I come from sunny Troon, and I am what is called a meddler. There are two key issues in the white paper: it will erect barriers to any meaningful public participation in the planning system; and it will confirm the view of the general public that the planning system is developer led. The white paper not only rejects the third-party right of appeal, but it proposes a national planning framework under which national strategic decisions on major projects would be taken without the public being given any opportunity to challenge them or any input through public inquiries.

Those two issues alone raise real concerns. The public expect to be involved in the planning system, especially given that no useable mechanisms are in place for people to feel that they have been heard. If a limited right of appeal is not to be considered, there is a serious danger that communities will conclude that the consultation, like the planning system, is yet another unjust, unequal and unfair process weighed against them.

It is a myth that TPRA—or the meddler’s charter—will give anyone the ability to block applications for any reason. That has not been the case in Ireland since the introduction of TPRA there in 1969, and it is unlikely to be the case in Scotland.

The planning system has to be fit for purpose, but it will be people in central and local government who will need to deliver change in the way in which people think about development. That will include a more meaningful acceptance of statutory bodies such as community councils, which implies a need for change in the attitudes and practice of those who are involved in the planning system. Local authorities will need to become more dynamic if they are to give community councils the training and funding that they are likely to demand for the job. Most important, community councils will need the necessary powers if they are to be the medium for members of the public getting involved in the planning system.

One of the most informative routes into the planning system is Planning Aid for Scotland. That is not, however, a Government-funded service. Such a service should be one of the main drivers in guiding the public into the planning system.

The national planning framework would be useful in Scotland if it was open and accountable. However, the proposed framework will be without any TPRA, and centralised decisions are to be taken without being open to public challenge or public inquiry. In turn, that will affect the most vulnerable communities in Scotland. TPRA is a crucial element of environmental justice; it is a general principle of the Executive’s policy making.

All communities should have the same right to a decent quality of life, and they should have the same right to appeal planning decisions that developers currently have. To create a level playing field, perhaps the powers that be should consider removing developers’ right of appeal. After all, the priority should not be the precise mechanism by which people become involved in the planning process; it should be that whatever mechanisms are in place should be usable, equal and fair. Most important, the users of the system should feel that their voices have been heard.

Mr Forbes Maginnis (Scottish Youth Parliament): I am Forbes Maginnis. I am the treasurer of the Scottish Youth Parliament. Through various campaigns and processes, the importance and relevance of an open and transparent system are continually discussed. In many situations, the involvement of young people is tokenistic. It is a serious and widespread misconception that young people are not interested in consultation, particularly at the political level. Recently, the Scottish Youth Parliament has witnessed various developments that are aimed specifically at young people or a younger clientele, but young people have had no say whatever in the development process.

As a wee aside, I am currently on my final teaching placement and I am teaching fifth-year geography pupils about settlement and population. On Friday, I decided to ask them what they knew about planning. I found that they had never heard of planning. For me, that is a huge problem. Until recently, when I was asked to come along and speak, I had never thought about the planning process either. Again, that is a huge problem for someone who is standing here representing a national organisation of young people. I represent a big section of society that has not been consulted at any stage.

We need to ensure that young people are consulted in a proactive and non-tokenistic manner. Consultation must be based on a full and relevant discussion from the outset and information must be accessible. There are people here today who are professionals in the planning process and they say that the information is difficult to understand. If that is the case for someone who has a relevant qualification, how are 14, 15 or 16-year-olds going to understand it? We need to consider how the process can be made more open and transparent so that it is easier to understand.

In closing, I have a question for those who make the decisions. It is something for them to bear in mind as they go through the process. How can they ensure that young people are consulted? After all, young people form one section of society. Moreover, how can we ensure that all sections of society are consulted? I ask those who make the decisions to think about that and to keep it at the front of their minds. Thank you for giving me the chance to speak today.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: I am going to move on to the second area for debate, which is whether the Executive’s proposals address the difficulties that communities face. That means that my screen has been wiped and the names of the 17 people who were waiting to speak have been taken off it. If you have comments to make that are pertinent under the new heading, please press your button again and I will call another batch of people.

During Mr Mackinnon’s address, a trolley arrived bearing bottles of water. It is in the little room in the far corner of the chamber. If anyone needs a bottle of water and a glass, they will find them there.

This section of the debate will be introduced by Ann Coleman from Greengairs community council.

Mrs Ann Coleman (Greengairs Community Council/Greengairs Environmental Forum): The question is whether the measures that are outlined in the white paper will address the difficulties that communities experience under the current system. Obviously, the acid test of the reforms will come when communities judge them against their particular concerns and ask relevant questions. In our case, the first question is whether the reforms will prevent more landfill sites from being approved in our area. The answer is no. Will the reforms ensure that the information contained in planning applications is accurate? No. Will they improve control and enforcement of conditions? No. Will they improve protection for the public, the environment and our heritage? They will not do that without further measures.

Those are the main concerns for most communities. Different developments cause different problems but the issues are similar. Cumulative impacts, unaccountability, lack of enforcement, lack of equality and the lack of a publicly accessible appeals system have all added up to bad experiences and a loss of public trust and confidence in the planning system.

Contrary to the myth that is perpetuated by our opponents, it is not development that we want to stop but bad practices. We would like to be excited about development and we do not want to live in fear of it, but it takes only one bad experience to make us nervous of all future developments. Even when we try to be pragmatic, there is no scope for compromise. If we support four wind turbines, we end up with 40. If we support one landfill or opencast site, we get five. One hundred new homes turn into 1,000. Historic buildings are knocked down to allow car parks to be built while vacant and derelict land and buildings are left to degrade even further.

Is that a recipe for a successful Scotland? We do not think so. It results in disproportionate development that does not make the best of our resources or meet our needs. It ignores local amenities and public services and reduces our quality of life. Will greater emphasis on public involvement at the front end of the planning system address those issues? Not without further measures.

We have always had the right to participate at an early stage in the process, but a major challenge must be recognised. When we get involved, we are up against experts in planning, including Queen’s counsel. Without appropriate assistance, there is a risk that the public could feel even more disfranchised by the participation process.

Consultation between communities and developers is to become an integral part of the system, but without accountability we will still be unable to trust the details of proposed developments. The same remarks apply to the reasons that are given for approval or refusal. We could be told that the reason for approving a planning application is that there will be 40 new jobs, but no one will be penalised or held accountable if only four jobs materialise, which happened with an opencast mine in our area. Good neighbour agreements will be subject to the same lack of accountability and enforcement, which will make the proposals no more effective than the current system is. If we have no trust in the detail and no confidence that the planning processes will be applied diligently and consistently, our main concerns will not be addressed.

To us, more decisions being taken at a local level means more decisions being based on politics as opposed to being based on good-quality development principles. We are told to use the ballot box to make our feelings known, but the democratic process in its simplest form does not guarantee social and environmental justice for all. Additional measures are needed. Like other local and national areas, our area lacks voting and financial power, and we have suffered from political discrimination as a result. That is another reason why we need an accessible right of appeal, regardless of our financial situation. Judicial reviews are out of our league and public inquiries are relevant only in specific circumstances.

We like the aspiration that is outlined in the white paper, but the reforms will lack the power to turn public participation into genuine public influence. We know that we cannot always have what we want, but there could be more fairness. Development should not have to be about one group having to lose for another group to win. The reforms must deliver an effective framework for all stakeholders to work together on an equal basis in an open and honest manner to achieve reasoned solutions and compromises, and there needs to be support and protection when we get things right. If there is to be fairness, good practices must be rewarded and bad practices must be penalised. The result will be that Scotland as a nation and all her people will be winners and the legacy that we leave to future generations will not be compromised.

Mrs Jean Charsley (Hillhead Community Council): I represent Hillhead community council in the Glasgow west conservation area and I am a member of Sustainable Communities Scotland.

The white paper proposes a utopian bill, but it will still cause frustration between local authorities and communities unless the details are right. The sustainability of communities is not addressed. There will always be disagreement over planning matters, and trust in the system and high-quality outcomes are achievable only if local powers exist to address local concerns and fears of malpractice. An independent assessor—which Anne Coleman suggested—should be empowered to act in response to complaints before planning consent is effective. That would do wonders for probity, efficiency and confidence.

Local authorities need more resources not only for planning, but to meet other needs without having to barter public assets that are available to all sectors of the community. Perhaps a review of national revenues is needed. They also need more support in the planning bill. If sustainable communities are to be promoted, they must retain powers to develop detailed policies to meet local conditions. They must also retain powers that the white paper seeks to remove, either in the bill or in other legislation, to control minor developments in households that can degrade the built environment and reduce the quality of life for inhabitants—I refer to the sub-division of rooms in tenements to increase the density of houses in multiple occupation, for example, which has devastating consequences for neighbours, housing stock and policies. The necessary guidelines and legislation must be in place. Once there is development, it cannot be undone.

The reasons for concern are as follows. The white paper proposes wider consultation, but without independent assessment of all the processes, that is not a panacea. Complaints arise after consultation and there is some justification for complaints about the partiality of the consultation, its faults and the way in which local politicians abuse the system. Abuses must be addressed. Scrutiny exists in theory, but the Executive calls in only matters that are of national importance. Many people have expressed concern over the issue. I would ask those considering the planning bill to take all those matters into account.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: One of the little privileges of being in this position is that I get to see which MSP’s name attaches to the cards that you have been given. George Butler has the card for Malcolm Chisholm, the planning minister. A lot rests on your shoulders, George.

Mr George Butler (Mearns Community Council): I am from Mearns community council, East Renfrewshire. My point is about the failure to recommend a third-party right of appeal. Too often in planning issues, local authorities wear more than one hat. I want to highlight a situation that arose in my area. A local authority had a site that it considered surplus to requirements and it decided to develop it. It came up with a development, approached the developer and agreed a price. The development became public, and the local community did not agree with it and was outraged.

The council discovered an impediment to the development because there was a building subject to listing on the site, so how would the council get planning permission granted? Historic Scotland agreed that the site and the building on it were worthy of listing. The local authority did not agree, because that would have snookered the sale and the planning application, so it granted the developer a demolition warrant. Even before the sale of the site was concluded, the developer moved in and bulldozed the building while it was waiting to be listed—deal done, and no consideration whatever given to the community. The site was undersold, but current legislation allows the council to decide what is a fair price for such sites. The matter did not go to Scottish ministers or anyone else.

What if an authority wants to do a deal but cannot get the deal done because of public objections? We might win the case and go to the ministers and there might be an appeal. If the ministers support us, the developers will go to the Court of Session. Everything is weighted in favour of the developers, and we have no right of appeal. We would argue that in such circumstances the system is being abused by the authority, which is wearing more than one hat, and there should be a limited third-party right of appeal.

Mrs Barbara Harvey (Abronhill Mast Relocation Group): I am glad to have been given the chance to speak this morning. There is much that I could say, and I have had difficulty in working out how I am going to frame it. First, the issue comes down to who makes the decisions. We can talk about consultation until we are blue in the face, but nowadays consultation often means that people are listened to then ignored. I appreciate the difficulty that Jim Mackinnon mentioned when he said that we can legislate until we are blue in the face, but the problem is getting people to behave with honesty and integrity. I like to think that we can make some difference with the legislation, which is what we are here to do today.

There is a big time issue here. The white paper suggests that there should be a big emphasis on quick decisions, on efficiency and on things being dynamic, but if everything is pushed through quickly, that militates against local communities having the time to formulate any sort of objection. It takes time to organise an objection. Once someone has worked out what a development will mean for them, they must find out whether their neighbours feel the same way. It is difficult enough to do that within the present timeframe, but it will be 10 times more difficult to do it within the timeframe that the forthcoming bill will propose.

I know that the fact that developers will run pre-planning consultation is supposed to represent some sort of compensation, but even though they are supposed to do that now, the process is a complete formality. One of the big problems that people face is finding out that a development is in the pipeline, because although developers are supposed to consult on their proposals, they tell very few people about them.

Time is a big issue. I appreciate that it is difficult to legislate for such matters, but I am extremely worried about the fact that the time that the planning process will take is being cut, because I think that time constraints militate against communities being able to respond to proposals. I would very much like the Communities Committee to make some amendments to the bill in that regard.

Mr Euan Page (Disability Rights Commission): My name is Euan Page. I am the parliamentary officer for the Disability Rights Commission in Scotland. I want to make a few points on the white paper and the extent to which the proposals that it makes will be meaningful in meeting the needs and aspirations of Scotland’s disabled people.

The DRC works to a social rather than a medical model of disability. A medical model would suggest that disability arises from an individual’s impairment. The social model maintains that disability arises from the interaction of an individual’s impairment with the physical environment and with people’s attitudes and values. That is why planning is fundamental to developing a disability equality agenda. Issues that relate to the use, development and division of the built and physical environments are key to identifying and removing the barriers that give rise to disability. Historically, with new buildings and developments, disability access considerations have been left to building standards but, by that stage, it is too late for such matters to be taken into account, because far too many of the decisions will already have been made at the planning stage.

It is extremely important for the bill to get things right because shortly after it is considered, in December 2006, the provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 that relate to the disability equality duty that every public authority in Scotland will have will come into force. Local authorities and their planning departments will have a non-negotiable statutory duty to remove barriers to disabled people’s participation, to identify and tackle the causes of discrimination and to support positively and develop disability equality. That means that people should be starting to think about giving disability equality a central place in planning, about how the forthcoming planning bill will help them to fulfil the non-negotiable statutory duty and about how that duty can inform planners’ thinking on disability issues.

The DRC very much welcomes the commitment that is made on page 42 of chapter 5 of the white paper that the Executive will, in appropriate circumstances, require applicants for planning permission to provide evidence that they have taken access considerations into account. That requirement needs to be made much clearer—we want to know under what circumstances applicants will have to provide such evidence. We want the application of that principle to be as wide as possible so that it is not just the public sector that must take into account disability equality. Private developers must be made to understand that, unless they have given detailed evidence on how they have taken into account the needs, aspirations and requirements of disabled people, their planning applications will not be entertained.

Mrs Penelope Sinclair (Southbank Court Residents Association): I am secretary of a residents association and planning convener on Kirkintilloch community council. I have read the white paper carefully and although I agree with several parts of it, I do not feel that the Executive’s proposals address the difficulties that communities face. I have grave concerns about the Executive’s desire to have unprecedented powers that will make it virtually impossible to block developments such as airport expansions, motorways, wind farms on an industrial scale and power lines.

The Executive wants to take strategic decisions on major projects that it considers to be of national importance. On a recent visit to Holyrood, I read that the Scottish ministers are accountable to Parliament. How can they give themselves powers to push through large projects that they consider to be of national importance? We were invited here to discuss community involvement in the planning system, but it appears that the public will not have a chance to get involved in matters of national importance, even though they are of major concern to us, as they affect our environment.

During the foot-and-mouth crisis a few years ago, it was evident that tourists and walkers are the mainstay of the Scottish economy. That is because we have such lovely scenery. I read in a recent newspaper article that the Scottish Highlands have been named the top British wonder of the world. However, that countryside of ours will be ruined by power lines and pylons—double the height of the present ones—running from Beauly to Denny and, no doubt, eventually all the way to the Borders and England, as well as further north. It is difficult to visualise the height of those pylons. A month or so ago, I attended a rally near Stirling at which a barrage balloon was flown at the height, which is the height of the Wallace monument. It does not bear thinking about that the beauty of the Cairngorms could be ruined by such a power line. If gas and water pipes can be run underground, so can electricity cables.

As we all know, aviation is the biggest carbon dioxide pollutant, so why build more runways and airports? No amount of on-land wind power will counteract those carbon dioxide emissions, so why ruin our lovely Scottish countryside with huge wind farms? Instead, we should concentrate on generating renewable energy at sea. I recently visited the Isle of Lewis and know the area there on which a large wind farm might be built. We do not condone the destruction of our most important wildlife areas in the name of combating climate change. The white paper talks about protecting our most important natural assets, but that is not what is happening on the Isle of Lewis. If the many proposed wind farms around the Scottish mainland and the power line down the length of Scotland go ahead—

The Deputy Presiding Officer: You must finish now.

Mrs Sinclair: Sorry. Thank you.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: Thanks. I wish that that worked as quickly in meetings of the Parliament.

Mr James Buchan: My name is Jim Buchan; I am from Peterhead in Aberdeenshire. I thank the ladies and gentlemen who organised the event and allowed us to come and say our piece. I was invited today because I once attended Planning Aid for Scotland, which Nick Wright spoke about. It is good that planners give up their time to educate the public, but the weakness is that the reams of paper, like the white paper, will work only if the people who produce them intend to work within them.

I do some voluntary advocacy work for Advocacy Northeast. I am here on behalf of neighbours. We have a massive deep-freeze building that is 5m higher than it should be. The council declared that it was a breach of the planning permission, but it cleared the owners and took no action. We have seen a catalogue of malfunction on the part of planners and councillors that goes beyond anything that I could hitherto have envisaged. I was first alerted to the situation by a digger digging holes of massive depth, from which I gauged the height that the building would be. The events that took place were remarkable. The builder’s agent was responsible for the neighbourhood notices, but, to my mind, that should always be the responsibility of the planning department. The letters should always be sent recorded delivery with bold print saying, “This project may seriously devalue your property if it gains planning consent.”

When we discovered that a letter had been delivered, we found that it was about the size of a coupon for fourpence off soap powder. My main point is that that should end. I congratulate the people who wrote the words in the white paper about consultation. If they were put into practice, it would not be radical change: it would be like arriving from another planet.

Mr Tony Miller (Peterhead Community Council) rose—

The Deputy Presiding Officer: I am afraid the speaker has finished, so you cannot intervene now.

Mr David Middleton (Central St Andrews Residents Alliance): I am a member of Sustainable Communities Scotland and a member of a local organisation called the central St Andrews residents alliance—CSARA—of which more later.

The white paper has a useful chapter on sustainability, but it offers little detail on how to put it into practice. We usually think about sustainability in terms of energy consumption, environmental pollution and global warming. However, I want to mention another aspect, which is the human element. We live in a country that has a declining population and some areas have a serious, downward graph towards extinction. The community from which I come is a dying one. I might surprise people by telling them that it is St Andrews—the home of golf—which has an ancient university and is an aspiring world heritage site. The town is dying because children of primary school age are only 4.7 per cent of the population, which is half the Scottish average of 10 per cent. We should remember that Scotland’s population, as a whole, is already unsustainable.

Why has this happened in St Andrews? The shortage of university accommodation has promoted the takeover of family homes for student digs. Buy-to-let landlords and hobby home buyers outbid local people, for whom affordable housing is virtually unobtainable. Young people who were born in the town must go elsewhere to make their contribution to society. St Andrews is a world centre of educational excellence, but it cannot sustain its current number of primary schools and the council is seeking to close one.

In a situation of housing shortage, in all our cities, large swathes of formerly mixed communities that are near to universities have become family-free zones, because student multiple-occupancy flats are largely invisible to the planning system—they do not have to be visible. Rural areas, too, suffer from holiday home lets.

Different communities will have different problems in maintaining their sustainability. In theory, current planning policies promote mixed, viable and sustainable communities, but our population continues to decline. Is that the fault only of the planning system? Obviously, the answer is no, but if the planning system is designed to be sensitive to existing problems and is given the flexibility to deal with them quickly, it can make an enormous contribution.

We need family-friendly policies that concentrate on the quality of the environment instead of policies that favour the profit motives of the developers. Unless we have such policies, we will not achieve the white paper’s sustainability objectives and St Andrews will become a museum of old houses and a quaint resort for visitors and golfers. Further, if we ignore the headline global warming issues, the old course at St Andrews will sink beneath the sea and half the university campus will also be 6ft under, so no one will come anyway.

Our hope must be that the planning bill that will follow the white paper will show the way ahead with clarity and vision and that the Parliament will see it as one element of a comprehensive plan to give this small country a sustainable future.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: This time I must apologise to 19 people whose names I am sweeping off the screen.

We move on to the third area of debate. Please re-press the request-to-speak button if your comments will be relevant to the third debate, which will be introduced by Anne McCall, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Scottish Environment LINK. She will lead discussion on whether the Executive’s proposals are adequate to ensure meaningful public participation.

Ms Anne McCall (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds): Are the Executive’s proposals adequate to ensure meaningful public participation? I am here today as a representative of Scottish Environment LINK, an umbrella body for 36 environmental non-governmental organisations. Our collective involvement in the planning system is perhaps most evident when we object to particular developments, but the reality is that we engage with planning and planners at all stages and levels of the process. It would be accurate to say, I think, that one of the most frustrating aspects of that involvement is our limited capacity to help people, combined with the limitations of the planning system in enabling people to become involved. Will the proposals in the Executive’s white paper change that? The white paper has many positive aspects that I support, but unfortunately some key omissions have the potential to undermine hugely the stated intentions.

The first omission relates to the national planning framework. The enhanced status and purpose of the NPF are hugely welcome. The Executive has stated that there will be consultation and a strategic environmental assessment of the document. That is great. There is also a proposal for the framework to be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. That is important and welcome, although the details of how that will be done or what that scrutiny will be are not yet known.

It is also proposed that the NPF will establish the principle of development for a range of nationally important developments. Those are undefined but—as Jim Mackinnon indicated—are likely to include water, waste and transport proposals. Again, we recognise the value of having nationally important proposals decided at a national level. However, the only opportunity for those who will live next to the proposed developments to object to those important decisions will happen long after the NPF has been agreed, at the point when an application is submitted. Essentially, that means that the big decision about having a proposal will already have been taken and local communities will be left to comment on the colour of the gates and the height of the fences. That is not meaningful public participation.

We suggest that there is a simple solution, which is used for spatial strategies throughout the country. In order to inform the process of parliamentary scrutiny, we believe that a panel of experts appointed by the Parliament to undertake an examination in public would ensure more meaningful public participation at the highest level and provide the Parliament with an independent view of proposals.

The second omission is the one that has received perhaps the greatest press coverage so far and it has already been mentioned a number of times in the chamber: the absence of a third-party right of appeal. I emphasise that what most of the people speaking today and the NGOs that I represent seek is a limited third-party right of appeal in four particular circumstances. Those circumstances were the subject of an Executive consultation, which, despite being lengthy and highly technical—as seems to be the norm for planning documents—resulted in more than 1,600 responses, 86 per cent of which supported a third-party right of appeal in principle. Scottish Environment LINK organised a series of public meetings throughout the country to discuss the consultation and invited local speakers and MSPs of all viewpoints. We were staggered by both the response and the level of frustration.

Consequently, the absence of even a limited third-party right of appeal from the Executive’s planning white paper is surprising. As a result of the huge cross-community support for the third-party right of appeal and the proposals for the national planning framework, we have joined together with the Association of Scottish Community Councils to lodge a petition with the Parliament. We have produced postcards, which we hope will offer everyone the opportunity to raise their concerns directly with the Parliament through the Public Petitions Committee.

Clearly, the subject of meaningful public participation touches on a wide range of matters covered by the white paper—for example, pre-application consultation, hearings and effective engagement with development plan preparation. Those proposals are welcome, but essentially they amount to a wider implementation of existing practices. It will take effort, resources and time to make those proposals work well, but I suggest that, on their own, they will not re-engage a sceptical and disfranchised public.

Mr Terry Levinthal (Scottish Civic Trust): I am the director of the Scottish Civic Trust, which is a built-environment NGO that operates throughout Scotland. The question is whether the proposals are adequate to ensure meaningful public participation. I suggest that no proposals in the white paper will do that, because virtually everything in it, from pre-consultation meetings to reports on participation in development planning, already exist and are already being done—they are just being made more formal.

I will take us back 36 years to the 1969 Skeffington report on public participation in planning. The report contained a number of interesting ideas and proposals such as planning for real and a whole series of things that I regret have still not been implemented and are still being discussed today. There is a world of difference between 1969 and 2005. All the tools exist, but they are still not being used.

Facilitation and the opportunities that it offers have been mentioned. It should be noted that local planning authorities have to date had virtually no skills to enable such a participative process to take place. A huge skills shortage exists not just in professional planning, but in engaging with the public. That needs to be fleshed out.

One point that Jim Mackinnon did not share with us but has shared in other forums and meetings that I have attended relates to resources. Since local government reorganisation, it has been known that resources for planning services in local authorities have decreased in real terms from 1.9 per cent to 1.6 per cent of local authority allocations. That has happened while the planning system has been put under increasing stress because the economy has done well and many proposals have gone through the system.

I suggest that the real issue is resources. It does not matter what good proposals are made; they will never be implemented if we do not begin seriously to think about not only the resources that are available to planning authorities, but the critical issue of resources that are needed to ensure that all the people concerned are engaged in the process.

As the process of scrutinising the planning white paper and the prospective planning bill begins, the fundamental question that people must ask themselves is whether the proposals are fit for purpose and fair for all.

Mr Peter Spinney (Mugdock Residents Association): I am the chair of Mugdock residents association and today I also represent Strathblane community council.

We can talk all day about what planning offices should do, but unless their decisions are properly enforced, the whole thing is a waste of time. We are concerned that the enforcement proposals do not go far enough. To give an idea of what I am talking about, I will relate a brief story from our area—I will give no names, of course. It concerns a planning dispute over the use of a gateway through a 6ft wall in a village on to a single-track road that had been prohibited by a section 50 agreement 20 years back because of the non-existent visibility splay.

A new owner of the property concerned sought planning permission, which was refused, but he started to use the gateway anyway. Although alerted, the local planning department took no action. The refusal was appealed and the reporter appeared—a man who was about 6ft 6in tall. While examining the gateway, he stood beside the wall, looked over it and remarked, “I can see down the road fine.” However, he could not overturn the section 50 agreement, so we expected the planning department to enforce it. When the department did not, we asked why and were told that it could not afford to. By that time, we had spent three years on the matter and spent an appreciable sum on legal advice. The residents were not very pleased.

That is an example of the extremely unsatisfactory way in which some planning matters are handled, which we hope that this meeting will address. It will be appreciated that, in this story, fault occurred at three points—if not legally, certainly morally. First, despite being alerted to a breach, the planning department made no attempt to enforce a planning decision. Secondly, the reporter clearly did not know his job. Thirdly, the planning department must have known that it could not afford to enforce a decision that went against the applicant and we believe that it should have advised us of that before we spent much time and money on the matter.

Finally, we believe that third parties should be able to appeal a reporter’s decision, perhaps to an ombudsman, so that they would not have to spend more money on going to court.

Miss Elizabeth Murray: I come from South Baljaffray in East Dunbartonshire. I am here today because I presented a petition on behalf of 106 people in the street in which I live asking for changes to national planning policy guideline 19, which governs radio telecommunications and forbids any mention of health issues as a material consideration. Great frustration has been caused because of that. I have looked through the white paper to find any mention of the place of the NPPGs in the new legislation but could find only one reference, which says that they will receive enhanced status. I hope that that does not mean that they will be set in stone and not reviewed, otherwise they will remain the clamp that silences the voice of local communities and the stumbling block to local justice that we consider them to be.

I am sorry to be negative, because I agree in principle with nearly everything else in the white paper, but I am also worried about the fact that, at the pre-application stage, the account of any encounters with local people comes from the applicant, with no counterbalance from the local people. We all know the golden glow that the applicant will put over any such transaction. Further, the delegation of authority and responsibility to local planning officers from the people whom we have elected to be our representatives on local councils and who make up the committees or planning boards is worrying. We should not be moving from democratic decision making to bureaucratic decision making. That is a dangerous road to go down.

Mr Alastair Kennedy (City and Royal Burgh of Elgin Community Council): I come from Elgin and represent the joint community councils of Moray in relation to community planning. I have chaired our local community council’s planning committee for a number of years and have had a fair amount of involvement with planning.  My committee members are extremely disappointed that the proposal to have at least a limited form of third-party right of appeal has been more or less dismissed. We feel that, without that factor, the greater balance and equality in the planning system, as proposed in the white paper, will not be achieved and the system will remain skewed in favour of the larger developer.

If public participation in the planning system is to be actively sought, people must know that their opinions or objections are really taken into account. If, for example, the proper procedures or best-practice guidelines have not been properly followed, people must be able to access an avenue through which the situation can be addressed.

I have twice listened to Mr Mackinnon’s excellent presentation. His wishes regarding public participation are laudable, but there is an uphill struggle ahead. I am not convinced that the proposals in the white paper carry all the answers. However, many of the proposals might help to overcome public apathy and restore public confidence in the planning system.

The proposal for planning authorities to give reasons for their decisions will be a huge improvement on the present system. In my area, reasons are given when an application is turned down but none is given when one is allowed to go ahead. If reasoned argument were to be used against any objections and the objectors were aware of why their objections were overruled, that would make a major difference to public confidence in the system.

Having sat in on a number of local authority planning meetings, I believe that that valid reasoning must also apply to their decisions, as I have seen those meetings being used as a vehicle to score party-political points rather than to address the issue at hand.

It is of little use to the public for elected members to say that an application was passed because a corner needed tidying up or because not a lot of people use a certain amenity at the moment. Well-debated and valid reasons need to be given by elected members and officers when a decision is made, not frivolous, offhand and, sometimes, downright stupid reasons.

That is most important when there is a departure from the local plan. I fear that the white paper does not properly address that issue, as the new system leaves objectors with no real way of redressing the situation. The public should be able to see the way in which an application is deemed to be an overall improvement—or not. There is definitely a need for transparency in the decision-making process; people should be able to see the valid reasoning that should lie behind decisions. There is also a need to ensure that public opinion is seen to be taken on board. I believe that that would go a long way towards achieving Jim Mackinnon’s goal.

My local planning department’s response to the proposal to give reasons for decisions was to say that it uses a checklist to record an officer’s work, which is retained on file. It said that an earlier Scottish Office audit cited checklists as an element of good practice and stated that the requirement for a full report on each application would mean that all previous efficiency savings and efforts to improve performance in the handling of applications would be lost. The response shows exactly why more openness is required in order to stop the reasons for decisions being hidden away on a checklist in a filing cabinet. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening.

Dr Angela Flanagan: I am from Perth and Kinross. Perhaps the first step towards encouraging public participation should be to identify the obstacles to participation in the existing system. Noticeable in that respect is that, although the white paper acknowledges that planning authorities can be negligent in their dealings with developers, there is no equivalent acknowledgement that that can happen in their dealings with objectors.

Clearly, mishaps occur. The decisions that are made thereafter are unfair and, in absolute terms, even wrong. Without official recognition of that, the attempts that are made by an objector to retrieve the situation can be beset by difficulties. The ombudsman may decline to inquire formally because inexperienced members of the public have used the wrong format or because they have complained of maladministration instead of malcertification or because the application was made too early, too late or to the wrong ombudsman.

Discrepancies can also arise. The ombudsman may take the view that responsibility for ensuring compliance with the planning conditions rests with the developer. However, that is at odds with the Executive’s view that responsibility rests with the council. No appeal can be made against ombudsman decisions except via judicial review.

In that sort of exercise, public participation is shown to be futile. Only the provision of a third-party right of appeal can address those problems. Instead of undermining local authority decision making, as the Executive fears, third-party right of appeal could restore confidence and encourage participation at an early stage of the process.

A requirement for the appellant first to have to provide proof of detriment, such as exists in the Swedish system, could cut out delays and unpredictability. Most of all, it could provide real accountability, which is one of the founding principles of the Scottish Parliament.

Mr James Milligan: I will concentrate on the inadequacies that relate, in the first place, to the plans. All land-use plans at every level need to be based on a survey that should clearly be linked to the proposals in the plan. The survey should show the inputs from the local community and it should, of course, reflect the policies of national and local government. No matter how long the process takes, the survey should clearly express how the land-use proposals follow on from the analysis of the facts that are presented.

If that is done, the plan will be an educational document as well as a basis for action. It can be circulated in outline to homes and schools. If, as the white paper proposes, communities are to be involved at the earliest stages of the planning process, communities will have to be involved in the appropriate surveys that precede the plan. Along with their local councillors and MSPs, communities are in the best position to judge whether past plans have resulted in places being more physically and socially attractive. In short, local people can be important contributors to the preparation of plans as critics of past plans.

Communities must also be key contributors to the contents of local plans. We have found that the training that professional planners receive does not necessarily make them the best people to identify the key issues and priorities. Often, the best assessors of such matters are those on whom the proposed development will have an impact.

However, the situation is more cheerful than that. If people are to own a plan, they need to have participated seriously in its construction. As we have heard from today’s contributors and from others locally, relevant factual information about past events can be provided by nearby schools, university groups for people with an interest in architecture and engineering and so on, historians, tenants and residents associations, senior citizens and parents groups. All those groups could be key organisers of the user surveys that would aim at providing new information.

If, instead of being invented every five years, plans were built on serious surveys and proposals were linked clearly to the facts, plans would become a cornucopia of education for local people. Such plans—I see that the time available is short—would demand public participation. I do not agree with the white paper that we need to strike a balance between participation and efficiency. In my view, efficiency is built on participation.

My final point—if I have time to make it—relates to the third-party right of appeal. I very much hope that development plans of the type that I have suggested will minimise objections and further increase efficiency—

The Deputy Presiding Officer: You must wind up quickly.

Mr Milligan: Local people should have the right of appeal through organisations such as community councils or local planning forums. If they are denied that right, it should also be denied to developers.

Mr Barry Teasdale (Peebles Civic Society): I hope that my comments are appropriate to today’s debate. I represent the pressure group Peebles Civic Society, which is concerned largely with design quality in the built environment of Peebles.

Obviously, we are in favour of meaningful public participation in the planning system, but we urge caution and suggest that it must be kept in perspective. Public participation costs money: it makes a call initially on the public purse and ultimately on our own. It also involves staff resources, which might be used more effectively elsewhere. Hence, there is a need for caution.

Our primary objective for a new planning system—unfortunately, it appears only as a secondary objective in the white paper—is the achievement of high-quality design in all new development. To achieve that, we need unfettered professionalism at the heart of the planning system. We need adequate design and architecture expertise, but it must be unfettered by unnecessary bureaucracy.

We also need a change of culture. Instead of asking—as one source suggested—whether a development is bad enough for it to be refused, planners should ask whether it is good enough to be approved. Such a change would need to be supported by legislation so that planning authorities had the confidence to adopt it. It should not be jeopardised by pressure for unnecessary public participation. Most members of the public seem happy to leave things to officials and elected representatives until something starts to go wrong.

Having said that, I should confirm that we believe that there is a need for meaningful public participation. Our experience in Scottish Borders is that there is no shortage of opportunity to comment on development plans, supplementary guidance, planning applications and even other matters. If we were asked what more was required, we might mention the regrettable absence of dialogue, but we recognise that requiring planning authorities to have dialogue with every consultee would be quite impracticable. In our view, the principal requirement should be for transparency and fairness throughout. For that reason, we commend the proposed requirement on planning authorities to provide reasons for all planning decisions and to provide details of agreements entered into under section 75 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997.

However, we disagree with the proposal that appeals against local planning decisions should be heard locally. In a plan-led system, we cannot see how development plan consultation can be open and fair if the consultative draft stage is removed. Although we realise that the third-party right of appeal against application consents is a difficult matter, it seems to us that fairness cannot be demonstrated effectively without some sort of provision for that.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: I need to draw the debate to a close at this stage. I apologise to the—by uncanny coincidence—19 delegates whose names remain on my screen. Some of those names are the same as those that appeared in the earlier group of 19 people to whom I had to apologise for not being able to call them to speak.
I have been interested to hear your views this morning and I am sure that you have given my colleagues on the Communities Committee a lot of food for thought. However, I must now turn to the more substantive matter of food for you. You are asked to leave the chamber by the door that is to my left. You will be shown down the black-and-white corridor, from where you will be directed to the members’ restaurant. At 1.30 pm, you will be shown directly from the restaurant to the committee rooms, where the working groups will take place. Therefore, you should take with you anything that you will need for those sessions. You will return to the chamber at 3 o’clock.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—
Feedback from Workshops
The Deputy Presiding Officer (Murray Tosh): Welcome back to the chamber from the discussions in the working groups, which I hope were useful and informative. We will now hear the feedback from the various groups. Each group has designated a reporter who, along with the MSP or MSPs who were attached to the group, will report back on the findings. If there is time after that, we might be able to take further contributions from the floor.

The first group was on public involvement in development plans. The group met in committee room 1 and its reporter is Nan McFarlane.

Mrs Nan McFarlane (South Ayrshire Elderly Forums): I was rather hoping to get the graveyard shift.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: Would you prefer to come to the front to speak, as you might be able to see the screen better from here?

Mrs McFarlane: I have long sight from years of sailing.

One of the main points that came up in the group was resources. It is all right talking about what is going to be put in place but, if the resources are not there, that would water down the initiative, which would make it a token gesture.

The role of community councils was also seen to be important. There is nothing in the white paper that spells out how the measures in the white paper will be executed in the community and how people will be involved in the local plans. There was talk of expanding the role of community councils and Planning Aid for Scotland. There needs to be something in the community that will educate and guide the community—not only community councils but housing associations, environmental groups and so on—about the planning system. It was agreed that a group such as Planning Aid for Scotland should be funded by the Government to educate people in the community.

There was some concern about the possibility that the centralisation of the planning framework would take the power out of the community and put it into the hands of the Executive. How will people become involved in the local plan if they are distanced from the decision making?

The issue of youth and community involvement was raised. There should be a measure in place to involve the youth, because they will be our future citizens. There are youth groups that, ideally, should become involved in this area. Some community councils have youth members. Young people have to be informed about what the planning system is about. They must be included in the local plan at an early stage and allowed to take it from there. It should be among the statutory duties in the white paper that the youth and the community are involved; it should not be tokenism or a mere gesture by the Executive. That would cement the trust and confidence that the community would have in the document.

I turn now to power sharing. There was a general feeling that people were disempowered from the local council. The majority of people felt that, although they made representations to their local council, they were not being heard or were completely ignored. The vast majority of people in our group said that we should have a limited third-party right of appeal.

As an exercise for the MSPs here today, could everyone in the debating chamber and public gallery put their hands up if they want third-party rights of appeal? I see many hands in the air. Enough said. [Applause.]

Reading through the white paper, we felt that it is not positive enough. There are no measures for third-party rights of appeal, which takes away any power that local people will have in the measures that are to be carried out. One point that was raised was that there is too much emphasis on why and how third-party rights of appeal could not be carried through, possibly because of resources, but there is not enough evidence in the white paper to show what the alternative would cost and how that would be carried out.

The slide that is showing now relates to allowing community members to sit on councils dealing with planning. That came about because we were asking how we could get people involved in the local plan. We cannot go out and drag them in and say, “Right, you have to listen to what we’ve got to say.” One of the ideas that came up was that members of community councils, housing associations, environmental groups and so on could be invited by the council to sit on the committees that deal with the issues in the local plan, such as land use, housing shortfall figures or whether we should have wind power. Those issues are all dealt with individually in the council, and if a member of the community sits in on a meeting and gives the community view to the council on how things should operate in the community, that would give people a sense of taking responsibility for their local plan. That would be a good idea.

Ensuring that planning documents are not overly complex is also important. Someone said that we should not have a great big tome and that it should all be cut down to bullet points. However, our council had a big tome and it was wonderful, because it was all explained simply and we could see how to read the document. Then, it got cut down and we called it a Mickey Mouse plan, and I got my backside severely kicked for that. That shows that if a document is reduced too much, its impact is reduced. There has to be some middle ground, to ensure that planning documents are easily accessible, easily read and easily understood.

One point that was made strongly was that there should be Government funding for Planning Aid for Scotland. People in the community are frightened of local plans, public inquiries and confrontational meetings with people such as Menzies Campbell, against whom I had to speak in a planning inquiry. People need to know how they can be confident in dealing with that sort of thing and we need someone out there who will teach us how to do that. It has been well documented today that Planning Aid for Scotland is providing that service and we think that we should be listened to on this. Planning Aid for Scotland should not be scrabbling about for funding. It should be Government funded and should be the tool that communities use to get involved in local plans.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: Mary Scanlon was the MSP attached to that group. Would you like to add anything, Mary?

Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con): Nan McFarlane has covered the points comprehensively, but I would like to add a couple of comments. As a Conservative, I am not really here to do the bidding of the Liberal-Labour coalition, but I have to say that I read in the white paper that there will be a significant increase in funding for Planning Aid for Scotland—and I say that as a member of the Opposition.

I wanted to say to all the members of community councils and others who are here today that consultation is an issue that constantly comes before MSPs in the Parliament. When we debated planning just before the October recess, we were advised by Malcolm Chisholm, the Minister for Communities, that we are to have a consultation on the consultation process. I hope that you will all have your say on how to have your say.

Since the day I came into the Parliament, consultation has been a huge issue, whether on hospital closures, planning or whatever. It is an enormous, complex issue, and we must ask ourselves how we get it right. I hope that you will all participate.

Not every area has a community council. There is an assumption that we can ask community councils, as they are statutory consultees in the process. One of the ladies in our group represented a residents association with a budget of £250. If the community councils think that it is difficult for them to respond with their resources and within the time allowed, it is even more difficult for residents associations.

I was struck this morning by the culture of not very positive working relationships between community councils and councils. We cannot write into legislation that we will all be happy-clappy and pally with one another—I wish that we could, as it would make such a difference. A gentleman from Haddington community council said that the local plan crept on them without their knowing. In fairness to North Lanarkshire, Mr Leggate said that they had very good relations with the council there.

The issue of resources was constantly raised. Portobello community council said that it raised £20,000 locally to fight the development of a superstore. There is much good practice there. Portobello community council said that it now has a Planet Porty website. That is a great way to help people to look for information in a user-friendly manner; it also gives them their say in what happens in Portobello. I like the sound of that; I will have to look it up.

We heard from Leven community council about the work, time, and expense needed to fight applications, and how difficult the local plan was to understand. As Nan McFarlane said, the role of community councils is not clear and that is something that I will look at again.

I was also impressed by what David Macdonald told us about the famous Cockburn Association—obviously, we do not have that in the Highlands. Its work with local schools in encouraging young people to take an interest in architecture and the planning process is admirable. I am not sure how that could be rolled out across Scotland, but what I heard was very interesting.

The lady from Arbroath mentioned trust. People do not think that they will be listened to and do not feel valued. They think, “What is the point?” After that, apathy creeps in. If delegates could give my colleagues and me an idea of how to overcome that, we would be very interested.

What happens to the areas around the city authorities? Do those hinterlands get the crumbs from the table? I know that that question has been asked about St Andrews and a gentleman from Perth asked whether everything would go to Dundee. We must ask how Edinburgh’s outlying areas will fare.

We parliamentarians need more engagement with our community councils. However, I would like the community council representatives to invite MSPs to their community councils. Let the MSPs know how difficult things are, and make sure that the MSPs know the issues that concern the community councils and will represent them in the Parliament at crucial votes.

I hope that the representatives of the community councils will keep in touch with the members of the committee, because we expect the bill to be introduced in December and we can suggest amendments to it thereafter.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: The next group was on information, transparency and accessibility. Terry Levinthal will report back.

Mr Terry Levinthal (Scottish Civic Trust): Presiding Officer, convener, members, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for this opportunity to report back, which I must say is not a voluntary activity but one that I have been appointed to do. Our group came to the conclusion that the process is useful and important. Clearly, we are debating the proposals not with the Scottish Executive but with the Communities Committee and the Scottish Parliament. We welcome that and hope that we have a long and fruitful discussion in the months to come. I apologise for not having visuals, but I understand that Bill Gates’s licensing agreements caused problems for us in our room.

One issue that became clear in our discussions about information, transparency and accessibility is the confusion, particularly among the public, about what is in the statutory planning system under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, ancillary legislation and guidance, and the wider issue of planning and the development industry in general. We need to consider what we can do within the statutory planning system to deal with the other issues, which are of equal importance to communities. To give an example, the statutory planning process forbids us from considering the health issues that relate to proposed telecommunications masts, despite the fact that communities are desperately interested in those health implications. We ask the Parliament and the committee to think about that wider context in its debates.

In thinking about information, transparency and accessibility, we discussed the Executive’s proposals for enhanced scrutiny procedures for three types of planning applications: those for major local developments that are significantly contrary to the development plan; those that fall under the environmental impact assessment regulations and for which environmental statements have been produced; and those for larger bad-neighbour developments that are also a significant departure from the development plan. We concluded that, while enhanced scrutiny in those circumstances is a point to debate, it should not be exclusive to them, as applications that are within the confines of the development plan or that may not need an environmental statement may still require enhanced scrutiny. A means of considering that needs to be introduced. We concluded that a fourth category is also required. If the local authority has an interest in a project, whether that be fiscally as a landowner or through a partnership agreement such as a public-private partnership, it should be brought into the system of enhanced scrutiny.

We were not entirely clear what the enhanced scrutiny procedures will be. As I said, we felt that the types of applications that will be covered are too restrictive, but the procedures are not detailed enough for us to say yes or no to them. As the god is in the detail and we do not know the detail, we cannot say whether we are willing to worship your god. However, in thinking about the whole process, we came to the conclusion that those four categories of project—the existing three and the one relating to local authority interest—are ones for which enhanced scrutiny would be useful, although they are open to interpretation. We noted that those are also the categories that have been proposed in relation to a limited third-party right of appeal. I am sure that people will not be surprised to learn that we quickly came to the conclusion that a form of enhanced scrutiny over those categories of application would indeed be a limited third-party right of appeal.

As we thought about the implications of environmental impact assessment, we came to the conclusion that there is adequate scope under the regulations to bring into the assessment procedures developments that have significant impact but which would fall outwith the system at present. There are any number of such proposals, but it would not really help to articulate them. A review of when environmental statements are required would be positive.

We also considered how information is passed on through neighbour notification and site notices and whether the statutory consultation period should be extended from 14 to 21 days. The notion of local authorities being responsible for neighbour notification seemed reasonable, as long as it is resource neutral for them—that is to say, as long as authorities do not have to devote staff time or professional planners’ time to that kind of administrative task. Regardless of whether the period of consultation is 14 or 21 days, it is not helpful if that is applied absolutely by local planning authorities. If someone submits comments on the 22nd day and they are simply put in the bin, that does no one justice. There needs to be an element of flexibility from local authorities.

When thinking about the timescale, we noted that the planning agreements proposal could mean that a developer and a local planning authority could agree on a process of discussion and negotiation taking up to a year. The current proposals would give members of the public, community bodies and community councils only 21 days in which to comment. We thought that, if there are planning agreements on the scale that is proposed, it would be useful for a more flexible period for comments to be tied into that.

The wider context is that neighbour notification as defined in the proposed bill means simply people and properties that are contiguous to a development site. We felt strongly that you should be thinking in a much more flexible, holistic way about what a neighbour is. That point was nicely put by one of the participants in our workshop, who said that it is about needing to understand the difference between a community of interest and a geographical community. A range of communities, rather than simply the person who lives next door, can have an interest in individual planning applications. We advise you to begin thinking in flexible terms about what a neighbour is and how planning information can be passed on—not just through a site notice, but locally at street and neighbourhood level, at city-wide level, regionally and nationally. That is all part of the process.

We were asked whether we could make public local inquiries more accessible and less intimidating. Of course, that is motherhood and apple pie. We like our mothers and apple pie, so we will have some of that. However, all sorts of issues are associated with it. People felt that they were still being intimidated by the process. Hearings may take place during the day, when people are working and cannot attend. People who are working part-time may not have the skills or resources that would enable them to participate fully in the process.

The final point that we considered was the legal principle of equality of arms. If a scheme finds itself in a public local inquiry, it should be incumbent on the state to fund the objectors, particularly if they are fighting against a local authority or government body that proposed the scheme.

Regrettably, we did not discuss the issue of e-planning. I know that it is a big issue and I am sure that the committee will address it.

I have set out the thoughts that we offer to the committee. We welcome this process and hope that there will be opportunity for further discussions in the future.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: The MSP attached to the group was Karen Whitefield.

Karen Whitefield (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab): I do not intend to speak for long, because Terry Levinthal did a good job of giving us a comprehensive report of what we discussed at our workshop. However, it is important that delegates should know my impressions of what was said at the workshop, as I am one of the MSPs who will scrutinise the legislation.

Although I was not surprised, I was somewhat taken aback by the overwhelming lack of confidence that people have in the planning system at every level. Confidence in the system will be the key test of whether the Executive’s proposals and the legislation that is produced are effective, because we must rebuild confidence in it. It was evident from the contributions that were made today that people distrust the planning system as it stands. There were concerns about the lack of detail in the white paper and as a result, people are not ready to say whether they support what is proposed. Without details, they cannot make a proper or full evaluation.

In the weeks ahead, both the committee and all interested parties will have an opportunity to consider the bill and to discover whether the increased detail will start to build up their confidence and address some of their concerns.

I was also struck that many people are concerned about the lack of independence of the information provided and the accuracy of that information. There was an overwhelming call for that information to be more accurate and for people to feel able to trust it.

On the environmental impact studies, people did not feel that there was sufficient engagement or enough confidence in the system.

As we scrutinise the legislation in the months ahead, the test for me will be assessing whether it will meet the objectives not only of making better planning laws but of giving people confidence and faith that the system will not only protect them but deliver good planning decisions.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: The second working group, on public involvement in development plans, met in committee room 4. I understand that Roderick Young will respond. I invite him to speak from the chair in the well of the chamber because the screen in front of it shows bullet points from his presentation.

Mr Roderick Young (Perth Civic Trust): I must speak from the well of the chamber because, without my glasses or contact lenses, I cannot make out the text on the larger screens.

We looked at the role and preparation of development plans and made a number of important points. The first was about communication. There was a unanimous feeling that communication was the biggest problem. Everyone cited examples of planning cases in which it seemed that only 1 per cent of people were interested. However, when one went out and spoke to people, one found that far more of them were interested when they discovered that the proposed site was either in their back garden, over the fence or jolly close to them.

What can we do to communicate better? We have to use TV, mail shots and local media—we have to do everything that we can. I speak with a little knowledge because I look after media and communications for Perth Civic Trust as well as for a church—not that that matters, but as it is the oldest church in Scotland and has some serious maintenance problems, I have quite a lot to do.

We need to develop a communications plan. There should be, as part of planning guidance, a set of bullet points about which we could say to planners and local councillors, “Look at these and think about them.” Local councillors are usually good at such engagement because they want votes; it is their business to keep the pubic interested. Therefore, I urge them to think about a communications plan.

We agreed that e-communications are good, but that they are not the only way to communicate. I am not asking for a show of hands to demonstrate how many people dive around the internet every day, but I am certain that few spend their entire time trying to get through the plethora of links that take them to where they want to go. Communication should include information about websites that people should be invited to look at. Websites are useful tools because one can post plans, for example, on them.

The topic of resources takes us back to what Nan McFarlane spoke about—we all talked about resources. The system will not work unless, somehow, we get better resources. A planning officer recently said to me, rather sadly, “The trouble is I spend more time nowadays on inputs than outputs.” That 21st century jargon means that he spends more time creating a spreadsheet that provides someone with a return. Such work may be invaluable, but one has to question why all these returns and reports are required. What is the information for? Do people really need all of it at the end of every day? The local planner should be out in the field with a pair of Wellington boots on and a plan tucked under his arm, talking to people about developments.

Issues to do with resources for local communities have been hammered in other syndicates. If community councils are to take more interest in what is going on, they will need help. I am not suggesting that community councillors should be on some salaried scale—I am sure that many here would not want that—but I think that they will want the help of professionals and of other organisations to do the business.

I turn now to strategic plans and developments. We have picked out four cities—and as a Perth man I question the inclusion of Dundee, of course; in Perth we consider that Dundee never contributed anything to the world at all, that it will swallow up all the money and that we will not see any of it. I could produce all kinds of spurious cases to show how that is happening already. However, the point is that the strategic plans must be just that—strategic. They must cross the boundaries. The strategic plan must link into the local plan; it must not be an isolated document.
That brings me to the national parks. The national parks sit on top of everything, so the national park plan must impact on the local plan. I am not going to suggest which has priority, but my personal view is that the local plan must be the one that brings everything in, because the local plan is the one that people in local communities will look at. The local plan will be the starting point.

On the timing and review of plans, we know that there has been discussion of the five-year plan. My reading of the situation is that it is a long-term plan, not a five-year plan. It should be reviewed every five years but the plan written today should be for 100 years. Everyone will say, “Oh God, I won’t be around that long, thank goodness,” but we should be looking right to the future. Only in that way will we capture issues such as giant pylons and wind farms, and only in that way will a proper green belt be established. Every time someone creeps into the green belt, we should be able to slap their hands and say “No!”

Changes in legislation must come into the process and must be taken into account. What happened to the local planning forums? The white paper seems to indicate that we should bring planning forums back into business. Where have they gone? Some areas may still have them—I do not know—but there should be a revival of such forums.

The Scotland-wide strategic plan should include transport, energy and all the issues that are beginning to become very contentious. The line of giant pylons is a classic example, as are wind farms and nuclear energy. The strategic plan is very much the Scottish Executive’s business. We all look to that plan, which will then tumble down to affect everybody else’s plan. There must be a strategic plan for the development of motorways and other such major projects.

The next slide concerns better information for local planners. I am not sure whether I am allowed to use the phrase in this forum, but this is what I call the bottom-up approach. If someone comes up with a plan, we should not let it creep up behind us. It should start at local level and develop from there. We have the Cairngorms example, where people took the idea of a national park, shook it and started at local level with everybody in the community. They said, “Look, this is what it’s all about. What do you want?” This is very much the same point as the point about engaging the disengaged, which goes back to trust.

We are doing a study in Perth Civic Trust at the moment on our future relationships—particularly with community councils. I can say without fear of contradiction that every community council member to whom I have spoken simply shrugs their shoulders when planning and the local council are mentioned—I am repeating what others have said today. I find that sad. One community council leader told me that if he wanted anything done that related to planning, he would get Perth Civic Trust to deal with it. He said that the civic trust was far better at that work and that it would take notice of the matter. That says it all.

The local plan should be developed after people have spoken to the local community. That comes back to the bottom-up approach—we should start at the bottom and work up. That way, people will begin to develop trust. The key to that is in the mandatory requirement for public examination. We need to talk to people, but that is not happening at the moment. We also need to take note of what they say.

Public inquiries are an absolute disaster. I have been involved in a number of them and as far as I am concerned they are just a job creation scheme for the unemployable—and that includes the QCs. I am afraid that they are simply a waste of money. The money that is put into them could be spent helping community councils, Planning Aid for Scotland and an awful lot of other people to do the job properly at the bottom, working upwards.

Finally, I make a plug for Planning Aid for Scotland, and I will correct something that has been said. The money that is there at the moment is for the future. We are all saying that Planning Aid needs to be resourced. I say to everybody here that Planning Aid is doing their job for them. It is providing an education mechanism that does not exist elsewhere, but which is badly needed. I think that the majority of us here are students of Planning Aid. We are very pleased to be the old boys and girls of the society.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: The MSP attached to that group was Scott Barrie.

Scott Barrie (Dunfermline West) (Lab): I do not intend to add much to what Roddy Young has just said, as he encapsulated what was covered during what was quite an extensive discussion. I was struck by the depth of knowledge and interest that exists in local communities around planning issues. In most cases, however, that has been born out of negative personal experiences of the existing planning process. If that is the main motivator behind the overhaul of planning on which we are about to embark, it is a good indicator of why we need to do so.

I wish to emphasise one of the final points that Roddy Young made. If we are serious about engaging the public properly in development plans, it is important to have proper community involvement. It is simply not good enough for planners and/or councils to produce a draft plan and then consult on it. It is more important to start at a much earlier stage and engage communities in the drafting of local plans before they are consulted on. It should be the community’s local plan, not the planner’s local plan. If we get that bit right, we can, I hope, reduce considerably the number of bad experiences that we have all had over the years.

There is genuine confusion about the Executive’s suggestion, in attempting to simplify the planning process, of city region planning, with the strategic function that all councils currently have. There is some fear about that. My constituency will certainly be affected by the Edinburgh city region plan, and other constituencies outwith the cities will be affected by other city region plans. There is confusion over the status and remit of city region plans, and there is a justifiable concern for those of us who live outwith the four major cities about the exact purpose of the city regions and whether they will work properly in practice. That needs to be clarified.

It is important that, when we talk about community involvement, we think about it on all levels. Mary Scanlon was right to indicate that not all areas are served by functioning community councils. The vast majority of my constituents do not have access to a functioning community council. I know that that applies to other areas of Scotland, too.

It is important that we involve community councils in the process, but that we also involve other legitimate community interest groups, whatever they may be, because it is not just a case of replicating one system with another system. It is important that we take a multilayered approach if we are to involve everyone in the planning process.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: The working group on the appeals system and enforcement asked Steve Farrell to report back.

Steve Farrell (Clerk to the Communities Committee): As facilitator, I could not persuade anyone to take on the role, so I am reporting back on behalf of the group that looked at appeals and enforcement. I should say that I am reporting the views of the group; they are not my personal views.

The group looked at Executive plans to improve the existing appeals system, had a lengthy discussion on whether a limited third-party right of appeal would improve the system and looked at proposals to improve enforcement measures. The group quickly agreed that the Executive’s proposals to improve public involvement in the development plan process would not act as a substitute for a limited third-party right of appeal. The group took the view that such an appeal system was necessary if the system was to be accountable and that it would act as a form of redress against mistakes that occur in the planning system. The point was made that if the planning system is to be fair, all parties must be treated equally. The feeling is that, currently, the process is developer led and that developers have a privileged position.

Concerns were expressed that the existing judicial review process that is open to communities that are concerned about the granting of a planning application can look at only the lawfulness of the application and the processes that were followed in agreeing it, not its planning merits. The view was expressed that a third-party right of appeal would address that.

It was not all doom and gloom. The group said that some of the Executive’s proposals for improving the existing appeals system may work by speeding it up and getting rid of appeals that have no merit. However, the view was also expressed—almost in the same breath—that that would create capacity for third-party appeals to be dealt with. Third-party appeals would also make planning authorities and developers more accountable. If such appeals existed, authorities and developers would know that it was possible that they would be challenged, which would lead to better thought-out applications and a much tighter process.

The general point emerged that trust was essential if any of the Executive’s proposed reforms are to be successful, and that a feeling of mistrust will exist in communities until the public are satisfied that they will be listened to and that they have equal status in the process. It was felt that natural justice must be an integral part of the planning process.

The point was also made that if a limited right of appeal was to be successful it should balance economic development with the rights of communities. There was also discussion of how any system of third-party appeal would work. The view was expressed that a more informal system that did not necessarily involve QCs and a courtroom approach would be necessary. The system would have to encourage people to come forward to participate. Costs should be minimised so that communities do not have to pay a heavy price to participate in appeals. Communities should be properly trained and their representatives resourced accordingly.

Towards the end of the discussion, the point was made that although there was strong support for a third-party right of appeal, the Executive’s overall package was to be welcomed. If a third-party right of appeal was added to that package, it would enhance the overall proposal.

The group then discussed enforcement. The view was expressed at the outset that enforcement does not work at present and that developers often pay scant regard to any conditions that are applied to approvals. One suggestion to improve enforcement was that enforcement officers should be more responsive and should be available when required to respond to breaches of planning conditions, not just during office hours.
The group felt that the approach to enforcement must be consistent across Scotland. The Executive proposal is that local enforcement charters should be developed by local authorities, but the group felt that a national enforcement charter would be much more efficient in encouraging a consistent approach to be taken across Scotland.

The view was also expressed that developers’ right to compensation if a stop notice is served should be removed. It was felt that local authorities are very cautious at present about taking such action if there is a possibility that they may have to pay compensation to a developer.

There was also a view that the enforcement officer’s role should be extended to cover any agreements on community benefit that are set out when a planning application is granted. It was also felt that enforcement officers should have a role in monitoring the conditions that are applied, not just in responding when a condition is breached.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: Two MSPs were in that group—Patrick Harvie and Cathie Craigie. I invite each of them to give a brief report.

Patrick Harvie (Glasgow) (Green): First, I thank everyone who has spent the day with the committee and who has taken part in the proceedings. I have found today very useful and I thank everyone for making it so. I echo the view of other committee members that everyone should keep in touch with us. The committee will be working on the forthcoming planning bill for months to come and for goodness knows how long after that on all the stuff that will follow on from the bill—the regulations, guidance and so on.

For us, the issue will not go away; our ears do not close at 4.30pm today. I ask everyone to keep in touch. We cannot reflect people’s views if they do not tell us what their views are. The forthcoming planning bill is not just another bill; it will set the context for pretty much all development in Scotland, perhaps for decades. Its importance cannot be overstated.

I was very pleased that our group got into some detailed discussion on how the wider right of appeal, or the third-party right of appeal—call it what you will—would work in practice and how such a right would improve the system rather than clog it up or make it less effective. The group discussed why those rights are consistent with the Executive’s intentions and aspirations for the planning system and why they are needed.

The discussion began and ended with a simple point about justice. It began with the comment that without TPRA, developers have an inherently privileged position in the planning system, which the group felt was unjust. Towards the end of the discussion, someone quoted from the white paper on the importance that the Executive places on economic growth. The discussion concluded with the comment that, at times, justice can matter more to people than economic growth does.

Those are profound points. When we debate the criminal justice system, nobody thinks of looking at how busy the courts are and suggesting that we should take away the defendant’s right to appeal against their conviction or sentence—I hope that nobody would dream of proposing that. Our sense of natural justice would cut across that proposal.

Planning decisions affect people’s lives in a major way. The people who are most directly affected should be powerful participants in those decisions and not considered simply as people who are to be consulted. Our sense of natural justice and our defence of TPRA should not be dismissed as mischief making, as some people have done. We heard about that earlier today, but it was quite wrong for that to be said.

Over the coming months, we need to carry on discussing issues other than the principles of justice. Those of us who support wider appeal rights need to make the case that such rights would make the rest of the system work better and more effectively for the whole of Scotland. If we are to build trust in the planning system, those rights are necessary.

I hope that everyone in the chamber will keep in touch not only with the committee but also with individual constituency and regional MSPs. People should continue to pester us for months to come. If we are to build the case for the wider appeal rights over the coming months, we need to hear people’s views on the subject. I thank everyone again for taking part.

Cathie Craigie (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) (Lab): Patrick Harvie and I come as a double act; we agreed to split the role. Like him, I want to say how much I have enjoyed today. It has been useful to bring together people—as Karen Whitefield said in her opening remarks, ordinary people at the coalface of planning—to discuss how planning affects their communities.

The question is one of confidence in the planning system. From dealings with my constituents and from listening to the views of people today, I recognise that that confidence does not exist. I have been involved in local development plans over the years. Mostly, the lead roles in developing the local plan documents are taken by professional planners employed by the local authority, the planning convener and a few councillors, the developers and a few individuals who happen to have an interest in the community. Most of us have not taken an interest in developing our local plans, but we must raise our local plans high up the agenda until local people know, through the community councils, just how important it is to their future and to the future of their communities to get the local planning system right. The theme running through our discussions today has been trust in the planning system. It is up to us to re-engage with communities in order to build trust in the system, to build towns and communities that we can be proud of and to have the facilities that our communities need.

We have to learn from experience. Professionals have driven the local planning and development plan system, but we must change that so that communities drive local plans forward. Some of the proposals in the white paper will make a difference, but only if we can ensure that the legislation that we end up with truly reflects what our communities want and if we develop a system that everyone can feel part of.

The white paper discusses the possibility of pre-application consultation. Some of us have experienced that through discussions on the telecommunication mast systems, in which pre-application consultation was introduced. However, that approach fails because communities that have concerns are not resourced. We do not have access to the information that the telecommunication companies produce and which has been assessed by people who are experienced in that field. Pre-application participation and involvement would be good, but we should not support on its own a pre-application consultation that pays lip service to communities.

I have been pretty gloomy in the past about local plans, but I have hope for the future. Communities recognise now that planning officials and planners play an important part in their life. Perhaps they only realise that once a local plan has been approved and it is too late to complain about it. We have to get in right at the start in developing our local plans.

As I said, I have hope for the future. I hope that those who are here today will talk to their organisations and involve a wider group of people in the consultation—the white paper is a consultation document, and consultations help to shape the legislation that comes before Parliament. I also hope that we get a modern planning system that takes us into the future and that we engage with a much wider group after today.

This event is the committee’s first step in its scrutiny and fact finding before we turn fully to the bill, and it has been very worthwhile. Thank you all for attending.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: The final group was the third group on public involvement in development plans. It met in committee room 5. Kate Adamson is the reporter from that group. Do you wish to speak from the desk where the bullet points are on the screen?

Dr Kate Adamson (Association of Cairngorms Community Councils/Carrbridge Community Council): I am happy to speak from here, if that is all right with everyone else, as I can see the screen.

My report will be short and sweet, for two reasons. First, we have the red-eye shift. Secondly, much has already been said.

Our first bullet point was about engagement through the community and community councils. As Scott Barrie said, it is extremely important to include small businesses and communities of interest as part of the community.

We thought that the use of community profiles would also be valuable. It would be a good idea if the bill included a duty on local authorities to provide a community profile, to ensure that all groups are engaged. We were thinking about young people, in particular, but also the ethnic groups and other people who are hard to reach. Those groups probably need additional support. They also need information to be provided, so that it is relevant to them.

When communities are consulted, there is a problem of time. I know that everyone is busy, but many community people take part in consultations as well as working and pursuing private interests such as sport. An extension of e-planning might help.

It is a bit of a problem that the planners do not really know how to engage with communities. We think that there is a learning process for them, as well as for communities. When we started the exercise in the Cairngorms national park, the planners had to discover that an awful lot goes on outwith the 9 to 5—in the evenings and even on weekends. They have been excellent in taking that on board.  We were concerned that the white paper says nothing about how to engage with people. It is important to consider the role of the community, as well as of elected members and community councils. We must remember that one plan does not fit all. Communities Scotland recently produced a document on how to engage, but producing individual communication plans is more important. Examples of best practice are probably more valuable, so that a different plan can be provided for each community.

We have already talked about building trust. Once the planning authorities prove to us all that they are really taking notice, people will start to respond to them and to have belief in them. That has been a theme throughout the day.

The other issue to which people have referred is resourcing. There should be resourcing of people, so that consultation is really meaningful. Local people who can take on the task of speaking to their communities must be independent in the way in which they report, but if they are resourced to do so adequately, communities will feel that they are being listened to. If reporting is done by local facilitators, people will see that the planners are listening.

We also raised the possibility of involving an independent mediation organisation when differences of opinion occur. It is obvious that the facilitators and Planning Aid for Scotland have got to all three of the groups that considered public involvement in development plans—I certainly would like to plug Planning Aid, as it could have a role in mediation. If the suggested mechanism of local facilitators were used, Planning Aid could have a role in training facilitators throughout Scotland.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: The MSP who was connected with the group was John Home Robertson, whom I now invite to give his thoughts on what was discussed.

Mr John Home Robertson (East Lothian) (Lab): I thank Dr Adamson for taking us through the conclusions and I thank Petra Biberbach for the way in which she managed what was a lively group and an interesting discussion. What emerged from the group, and from the whole gathering today, was a pretty deep-rooted cynicism about the way in which the planning system works. There is a perceived and, dare I say it, probably real lack of consultation on developments. There is also a strong perception—it may be more than that—that developers have too much influence in the procedure and, conversely, that citizens and communities have too little influence. That is the issue that we must try to get right in the new legislation that we will work on.

The focus of our discussions has been heavily on ways of stopping inappropriate developments, which, as a constituency MSP, I understand very well. My parliamentary colleagues and I were not allowed take part actively in the group discussions but, if I had been allowed to contribute, I might have mentioned that Scotland should not be seen as a fossil and that we need appropriate good developments. Scotland is a living and developing modern country and we all need certain developments. Let us remind ourselves that we all need houses. The lady from Govan referred to the fact that the community there has a need for more affordable rented housing, which is something about which the Deputy Presiding Officer, I and various other members have strong feelings in our respective areas. The same point can be made about the need for infrastructure and shops. We all use electricity and water, we all generate waste, whether we like it or not, and we all need industry and business to underpin our economy. Let us consider the positive, as well as the negative, aspect of development.

The planning system is not just about blocking bad developments; it must provide ways of delivering good developments for the good of all our communities. I am the MSP for the constituency of East Lothian, where we have two great big power stations and a lot of windmills. We also had a great big opencast site to provide coal to burn in one of those power stations to generate electricity for the whole of Scotland. Scott Barrie could make a similar point about Fife. We now have a vast landfill site in East Lothian that takes all the landfill waste from Edinburgh, the Lothians and the Borders. Worse than that, we are under siege from private housing developers that want to build lots of expensive houses in which most local people cannot afford to live.

Therefore, I am well aware of the problems of difficult developments, but planning must be about striking the balance between essential conservation and necessary development. That is not easy. Development plans are the fundamental tool for managing that process, but it is clear that people are not happy about the way in which those plans are being written and implemented. The task for our committee—which starts today, I suppose—is to help, or perhaps make, the Executive provide a better and more responsive system for the future.

That is probably one of the most important tasks that I have had in my 27 years as a parliamentarian, in another Parliament and now in the devolved Scottish Parliament. The procedures in this Parliament are meant to be wide open, to enable citizens from throughout the country and from all sorts of groups to have their input and to engage with us. That is what you are doing today. Thank you very much for taking part; I found the event very interesting. We have a great deal of hard work to do in the coming months. Heaven knows how long it will take.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: We are winding down towards the close of the event. However, before we finish, I invite Karen Whitefield to make some comments on behalf on the Communities Committee.

Karen Whitefield: I hope that everyone who attended today’s event found it useful, informative and constructive. I know from listening to my colleagues—and I can speak on their behalf for a change—that we have all found it very useful and helpful. We will bear in mind your comments today as we begin our deliberations on the legislation.

The event today could not have happened without your attendance. I am grateful to you for taking the time to come to Edinburgh. I know that that involved a considerable journey for some people. It also involved your giving up yet more of your free time, for which you get no reward other than, perhaps, the occasional satisfaction that you are doing good for your community. Thank you again for coming here and engaging with the Communities Committee.

I also thank Murray Tosh, the Deputy Presiding Officer, who gave up his Saturday. He did not spend it in his constituency, but came here to chair today’s event. I am grateful to him for that.

A final thank you to the clerks of the Communities Committee and to the many Parliament staff who have worked over several months with the clerking team of our committee in preparing today’s event. This has been a major undertaking for the committee and I value the support that the clerking team has given in organising it.

Today’s event is most certainly the beginning of the scrutiny process for the Communities Committee. The white paper and the bill that will be introduced are the intellectual property of the Scottish Executive, but it will be the responsibility of the Communities Committee to scrutinise and amend that legislation. The comments of the community councils today will be considered in our deliberations, along with the other opinions that we will hear in our pre-legislative work. Some of you spoke with great eloquence. I am sure that as we take formal oral evidence you will be invited to come back to reiterate and add to some of your points.

You may be interested to learn that you will be able to monitor the Communities Committee’s work on the Parliament’s website. You will also receive written confirmation when the committee issues its call for evidence and you are asked to contribute.

It is clear from your contributions today that you want Scotland’s planning system to be modernised. However, you also feel that any modernisation should rebuild your confidence, your engagement and your equality of access to the planning system. The committee will certainly reflect on your contributions today. Once again, I am grateful to you for attending and I look forward to future engagement.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: Thank you, Karen.

It falls to me to bring the conference to a conclusion. Karen referred to the fact that I had given up my Saturday to chair this event. You will understand that the three Presiding Officers are fairly careful in rationing events that we have to attend. However, this is one for which I was happy to sacrifice my Saturday. As many of my colleagues know, planning and development are issues in which, when I am not being a Presiding Officer, I take an interest.

I am interested, and I know that my committee colleagues have been interested, in the views that you have expressed today. Hearing others’ views has been an important part of gathering information and developing our perspectives on the planning process.

In bringing the event to a close, I again thank you for giving up your Saturday to spend some time with us and to tell us how you see the process and what you hope it will lead to. I wish you all a safe journey home.