Scotland planning news, December 2022

 

Tom Arthur MSP, Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, published the NPF4 to Parliament, giving a timely statement on 8^th November, World Town Planning Day, to peers. He stated that the revised NPF4 represents an explicit commitment to the “guiding principles” of climate change and nature recovery, while ensuring adequate housing provision by maintaining a robust evidence-based process on housing policy and targets. The Minister insists that NPF4 is about enabling development by streamlining current planning practice to make it more consistent, freeing up resource to go in a “new and bold direction”. Despite the statement’s generally positive tone, Mr Arthur referenced implementation difficulties for planning authorities - who will be expected to produce new local plans flowing from the Framework – in the context of ongoing financial hardship and competing pressures on resource.

Along with the revised draft came the first iteration of the NPF4’s Delivery Programme, which aims to “create the conditions under which place-based collaboration can underpin the implementation of that vision by all relevant stakeholders” by “clearly setting out strategic actions, responsibilities, and ways of working”. The document reaffirms the Scottish Government’s commitment to the so-called “Place Principle” in planning, as well as to the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 and the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019. The former is to be acted on through increased pressure on fairer representation in community engagements to support Local Development Plans, Local Place Plans, and Regional Spatial Strategies, as well as using asset transfer to help communities bring forward their own proposals for the development and use of land. The latter is committed to through a promise for wider collaboration with different networks to support the better alignment of planning with other strategies and decisions at a regional and sub-national level.

The Scottish Government’s Social Research body has released a report in collaboration with the UK Centre for Collaborative Housing Evidence on the role of PBSA and student housing in Scotland. The research was commissioned to inform the work of the PBSA Review Group, whose work is used to ensure rent affordability and improving standards across the sector. The report will play a role in fulfilling Housing to 2040, the government’s first ever national housing strategy, which boasts a total investment package of around £16 billion.

Some of the project’s key findings can be summarised as follows: there has been a post-pandemic retreat by landlords providing HMO student housing in Scotland, which has narrowed the choice available to students and as such, the affordability of their housing. At the same time, the role of the private PBSA sector (as opposed to university-owned student halls) is growing, effectively creating an additional source of supply and relieving pressure that would have been hard to manage within the existing PRS stock in Scotland. However, in some cases this has led to a lack of mid-range, low-cost accommodation as new PBSA developments are allowed to move upmarket. This is all in the context of rising demand across Scotland.

In light of these findings, the paper calls for greater collaboration within the sector to provide private PBSA which caters for those whose financial provisions currently preclude them from accessing new PBSA developments. To achieve this, the paper highlights a need for more robust and regular data on students’ economic circumstances and the affordability of different types of accommodation throughout Scotland. Only then will it be possible to put policy in place on issues of regulation, redress, affordability, rent setting and managing the supply offer made by supply interests.

The draft version of Edinburgh’s sustainability-centred ‘City Plan 2030’ has been submitted to Scottish Government (SG) ministers for approval. A consultation on the draft plan took place at the end of last year.

As part of the City’s renewed commitment to be net zero by 2030 (a focus of local policy across Scotland in response to the national policy direction), the plan aims to “reduce carbon emissions and expand public services and infrastructure to meet the needs of the city's growing population”. It also has an ambitious target of 37,000 new homes across 117 sites over the next 10 years following the 20-minute walkable neighbourhood approach (see below).

New developments would need to “enhance and not detract from the city’s overall character and quality of environment” through their design and contribution to placemaking. All new planning applications involving the construction or change of use of one or more buildings would need to be accompanied by a sustainability statement to help mitigate, and adapt to, the impacts of climate change.

Other planning considerations include policies to manage the number of short-term lets operating in the city (read Arabella Stewart Leslie’s blog on tourist accommodation in Edinburgh); and a requirement for developers building student housing on sites of more than 0.25 hectares to include 50% private housing, of which 35% must be affordable.

In a press release Cllr James Dalgleish, Convener of the Planning Committee for the City of Edinburgh Council, said:

 

 

The ‘20-Minute Neighbourhoods for Scotland’ insight focus by Lichfields considers the scale and type of developments needed to deliver successful sustainable communities. These neighbourhoods are designed so that residents can meet the majority of their day-to-day needs within a 20-minute walk (approximately 800 metres) of their home. The insight finds that while they are a good idea in principle, there is more work to be done to create clearer guidance for those who want to plan for 20-minute neighbourhoods to ensure there is sufficient patronage to make different services viable. This involves:

1. listening to the needs of local people when deciding what local services to provide where, and
    
2. establishing an appropriate housing mix and population density.
    

The Insight Focus found that planning for “100 people per hectare within a five-minute walk to a bus stop and between 30 people and 90 people per hectare in a ten-minute walk of a local facilities, delivers the best balance if a place is to work as a 20-minute neighbourhood”. It also concluded that “46 units per hectare is about the right starting point to support a good level of local facilities and bus services”.

20-minute neighbourhoods will form a key part of the ‘Liveable Places’ pillar of the 2045 National Spatial Strategy, which is included in the NPF4’s revised draft. Aside from bringing people closer to local facilities, the Framework cites the initiative as a way for Scotland to support lifelong health and wellbeing through active travel and better use of public spaces. The Scottish Government has also committed to ensuring development in Scotland has a legacy (“futureproofing”), which it sees the 20-minute neighbourhood as providing because of its close ties to effective placemaking.