As I have stated, resources will be freed up, and I would like those resources to go towards helping communities and aiding development. In your previous session, there was a fair amount of debate about local place plans, but we should recognise that many communities across Scotland are already doing this work. Indeed, convener, I think that you highlighted your own constituency in that respect, and of course, people in Linlithgow have recently come up with their own local place plan without very much resource.
11:45
The view that we have taken on costs is based on what has happened south of the border with neighbourhood plans. I have heard what people have said about charrettes; however, the fact is that not every local place plan will require a charrette or, indeed, a huge amount of resource, because the community themselves might want to drive its own local place plan. However, I recognise Mr Bibby’s point about poorer communities that might not have the resource, and I expect local authorities to use the resource available to them to target poorer communities or communities that do not have the necessary wherewithal and divert resources to them.
As was briefly touched on in the previous evidence session, one of the key things about local place plans is that they should fit in with some of the things that are already going on right across the country. Since being given this ministerial role, I have talked a fair amount about intertwining community planning and spatial planning. A huge number of community planning exercises are going on across the country, and some local authorities have been absolutely spot on in their level of engagement with communities in that regard. What I would now like them to look at—and what the legislation wants them to look at—is how community planning and spatial planning can be brought together, because I think that intertwining both will get many more communities and individuals involved in the planning process.
The resources freed up as a result of the process that is coming out should go towards providing local authorities with resource for local place plans, and I would hope that local authorities would divert resources to and target poorest communities first. After all, they are often the communities that cannot take part in some of these things, because they do not have the necessary wherewithal at their disposal.