1. Delivering New Development Plans
Rosie Leven Principal Planner

2. PAD’s role in Development Planning
Setting the legislative framework
Providing advice and support on operation
Providing comments on drafts, MIRs and PPs
Promoting the sharing of good practice
The new system was commenced on 28 February.

3. Development Planning What are development plans for?
What type of plans do we want?
What’s the new process?
What’s the progress with the new plans?
The new development planning system commenced over 4 ½ years ago (28 February 2009).
This is what I hope to cover today …
READ

4. What are DPs for? To provide a vision
To show where development should and should not go
To coordinate development and infrastructure
To guide decisions on planning applications
So let’s remind ourselves why we need development plans. Development plans are the key planning policy documents produced by local councils. The law says that planning decisions must be made in line with the development plan unless there are special reasons to depart from it.
The development plan should provide a clear, realistic vision of how places should change and what they will be like in the future.
It should drive the delivery of that vision by clearly saying where development should and should not take place, what form it should take and when it will be delivered. It should identify the best locations for new homes, businesses, infrastructure , and also protect places of existing value to people or wildlife.
It should co-ordinate the efficient delivery of development and new or improved infrastructure, such as roads, schools and parks.
Lastly it should provide a framework for predictable and transparent decision-making, and so give people, businesses and other organisations confidence to make decisions about investment and development

5. The new plans A significant shift in process and product
Quick to prepare, regularly reviewed
Early engagement
Well project managed
Focussed on delivery
Short, map-based plans
Visionary and spatial
Concentrate on big ideas/issues
Strong evidence base
Aim is for good but not necessarily perfect plans

6. The new DP landscape The Development Plan Monitoring Statements
Strategic Development Plans
Strategic development plans and local development plans together make up the development plan for an area.
Plus for the first time, supplementary guidance can also form part of the development plan, so long as it is properly consulted on, and the intention to produce it has been signalled in the SDP or LDP. But SG can’t be used for anything. The law limits its use to: topics specifically mentioned in the SDP or LDP as being topics for SG; and the provision of further information or detail within the context of broad proposals or policy approaches set out in the SDP or LDP itself. We don’t want SG to be used to introduce major policy changes ‘through the back door’. So things like detailed policies where the main principles are already established; or masterplans. But departures from national policy and more significant development proposals should always be dealt with in the SDP or LDP itself. Councils can continue to prepare non-statutory guidance as they do at the moment, but it will not be part of the development plan.
Councils must also publish a development plan scheme every year. This will set out their forward programme for preparing their plans and also explain how they will involve the public in plan preparation.
New plans should be partly based on monitoring statements which should look at how the plan area has changed since the last plan, and what impact the last plan had.
Finally, Councils are required to produce an action programme setting out what needs to be done, by who and by when to deliver the policies and proposals of the plan.
Action programmes
Local Development Plans
Development Plan Schemes (inc. Participation Statements)
Non-statutory guidance
Supplementary Guidance

7. Character of Engagement Character of Engagement
What’s the process?
Old System
Issues Paper
Draft Plan
Final Plan
Pre- Inq Mods
Inquiry
Mods
Adopt
Character of Engagement
Involve
Consult/ Negotiate
Justify
The preparation process for SDPs and LDPs is very similar, until the final stages, as I will explain. Importantly, it should be quicker and simpler than the outgoing process. A key aim is that discussion about the plan should happen earlier, before councils have become wedded to a particular approach.
Instead of consulting on a draft plan, councils will prepare a main issues report which will focus on the council’s big ideas for change. It will contain a preferred strategy but also set out alternative approaches. The main issues report is the main opportunity for the public, agencies and developers to have a constructive dialogue with the council about the content of the plan. It is also the critical stage for Strategic Environmental Assessment – it is at this stage that the environmental report will be published, which may then be amended at the later stages depending on changes made to the plan.
MIRs are the main opportunity for people and agencies to get involved in the preparation of the plan. MIRs are not draft versions of the plan but should concentrate on the main changes since the last plan and the authority’s big ideas for development. They should contain preferred options (at a fair amount of detail – site specific) and one or more reasonable alternatives. The authority shouldn’t be in a mindset of defending their proposals at this stage, but should be genuinely open to other ideas.
But there’s more to engagement than main issues reports. They are one tool among many that the authority may use throughout the period of plan preparation. This range of engagement activities, appropriate to their own local circumstances, will have been set out by them in their participation statement.
The proposed plan represents the council’s settled view as to what the final content of the plan should be. People may make formal representations at this stage. The issues raised will be considered at an examination by a Scottish Government reporter, who may recommend modifications. In the case of LDPs, the reporter’s recommendations are largely binding and the council will then adopt the plan. In the case of SDPs it is the Scottish Ministers who will approve the plan.
New System
Main Issues Report
Proposed Plan
Examination
Adopt with Mods
Character of Engagement
Involve
Consult/ Negotiate
Inform
Justify

8. Character of Engagement Character of Engagement
What’s the process?
Old System
Issues Paper
Draft Plan
Final Plan
Pre- Inq Mods
Inquiry
Mods
Adopt
Character of Engagement
Involve
Consult/ Negotiate
Justify
The preparation process for SDPs and LDPs is very similar, until the final stages, as I will explain. Importantly, it should be quicker and simpler than the outgoing process. A key aim is that discussion about the plan should happen earlier, before councils have become wedded to a particular approach.
Instead of consulting on a draft plan, councils will prepare a main issues report which will focus on the council’s big ideas for change. It will contain a preferred strategy but also set out alternative approaches. The main issues report is the main opportunity for the public, agencies and developers to have a constructive dialogue with the council about the content of the plan. It is also the critical stage for Strategic Environmental Assessment – it is at this stage that the environmental report will be published, which may then be amended at the later stages depending on changes made to the plan.
MIRs are the main opportunity for people and agencies to get involved in the preparation of the plan. MIRs are not draft versions of the plan but should concentrate on the main changes since the last plan and the authority’s big ideas for development. They should contain preferred options (at a fair amount of detail – site specific) and one or more reasonable alternatives. The authority shouldn’t be in a mindset of defending their proposals at this stage, but should be genuinely open to other ideas.
But there’s more to engagement than main issues reports. They are one tool among many that the authority may use throughout the period of plan preparation. This range of engagement activities, appropriate to their own local circumstances, will have been set out by them in their participation statement.
The proposed plan represents the council’s settled view as to what the final content of the plan should be. People may make formal representations at this stage. The issues raised will be considered at an examination by a Scottish Government reporter, who may recommend modifications. In the case of LDPs, the reporter’s recommendations are largely binding and the council will then adopt the plan. In the case of SDPs it is the Scottish Ministers who will approve the plan.
New System
Main Issues Report
Proposed Plan
Examination
Adopt with Mods
Character of Engagement
Involve
Consult/ Negotiate
Inform
Justify

9. New examination process
Reporter(s) recommendations
Inquiry sessions
Hearings
Written submissions
Evidence submitted up-front
No right to be heard orally
Reporter determines form
Based on issues, not individual representations
Limited scope to depart
Local plan inquiries were a major cause of delay under the old system. The new system brings with it a new style of examination.
First, there are examinations for SDPs and LDPs wherever there are outstanding objections. In terms of how they will operate:
Parties will be expected to make the entirety of their case up-front as part of their original representation on the proposed plan. These representations, and the Council’s response, will form the main basis of the reporter’s conclusions. There is no automatic right for people to submit further evidence later in the process.
The Planning Act removed people’s right to be heard orally. But that does not mean that their concerns are not considered and understood. Instead it will be for reporters to decide who they want to receive any additional evidence from, and how that evidence should be submitted. In most cases, this is in written form. If oral sessions are held, and in some cases none have been required, this is normally by informal hearings rather than formal inquiries.
Reporters will not be drawing conclusions on every individual representation. Instead they consider the issues raised in representations, as grouped by planning authorities on their Schedule 4 forms.
In Circular 1/2009, the Government has clarified the purpose of examinations. It is not the reporter’s job to rewrite the plan to make it as good as it can be. It is the planning authority’s plan, and the reporter will only recommend changes where the content of the plan is clearly inappropriate or insufficient. Reporters can make major additions or changes to the plan, or require additional work, for example, in the case of SESplan where the reporters recommended that supplementary guidance be prepared to fill a gap in terms of the distribution of housing allocations.
As mentioned in the last slide, there is now limited scope for authorities to depart from the reporters recommendations in an LDP examination.

10. Proportionate evidence base
Monitoring Statement
Environmental Report
Housing Needs and Demand Assessment
Housing Land Audit
Transport Assessment
Urban Capacity Study
Retail capacity Study
Landscape Character Assessment
Flood Risk Assessment
Accessibility Analysis
There is a legal requirement on authorities to produce a monitoring statement alongside the main issues report to analyse how the plan area has changed since the last plan, and what impact the policies and proposals of the last plan had.
The monitoring statement will form just one part of the evidence base for the plan. A host of other documents and exercises may also contribute to making the plan better informed. Some of these such as the environmental report, housing needs and demand assessment and the housing land audit are requirements. Some, such as urban capacity studies and transport assessments may often be highly desirable. Others may be good practice, but not always essential.
Authorities have limited resources and need also to focus to prepare the plan quickly. They, and the other agencies involved, should therefore take a proportionate approach and consider carefully where scarce time and resources can best be spent to inform the particular issues being addressed in this particular plan.

11. Environmental Assessment
SEA/HRA are part of the process
Inform plan content
Focus on significant effects
Centre on early, effective engagement around Main Issues Report
I wanted to mention a couple of other issues which impact on the plan process. The first is Strategic Environmental Assessment.
A lot of experience has now been gained with SEA and good practice is starting to develop. But it is still seen as a delay, a burden, a paper exercise.
We are keen for SEA to be seen as an integral part of the process and an exercise that helps to inform the plan and make it more robust. But it should focus on significant effects rather than every minute detail which has often resulted in Environmental Reports that are hundreds of pages in lengths and often barely comprehensible!
The key with the new development plan process is effort and engagement being focused on the Main Issues Report – where alternatives can be assessed – rather than later in the process. This is when we expect the Environmental Report to be published.
Within PAD, our own SEA Unit provides support on SEA across the public sector. The unit has produced guidance on SEA and Development Plans and Fiona Simpson and her colleagues will be happy to help with any queries you have.
The SEA Gateway Team published the latest guidance on SEA on August This guidance replaces the SEA Toolkit and has been prepared with support from the Consultation Authorities and SEA Practitioners. The aim of the new guidance is to offer practitioners advice on undertaking an SEA, while covering other practical steps, such as achieving proportionality, selling the values of the assessment process to others and considering what is good practice.

12. Key Agencies SNH SEPA Health Boards Historic Scotland Scottish Water
Scottish Enterprise
Regional Transport Partner-ships
Crofters Commission
Health Boards
Historic Scotland
Transport Scotland
Highlands & Islands Enterprise
An important are of engagement for planning authorities will be with the so-called key agencies. These are public bodies that the Scottish Government has identified as having a special role in the preparation of development plans, either because they hold key information or expertise, or because they are responsible for key infrastructure. And they are … [READ]
These bodies must be consulted by planning authorities at key stages of the plan, and the agencies are under a legal duty to cooperate. The hope is that through this involvement, the ‘ownership’ of the plan will be shared more widely and the agencies will buy in to the plan’s strategy and delivery.
For legal reasons, internal agencies of Government like HS and TS can’t be listed individually, but we would expect these agencies to have an equivalent level of involvement.

13. Plans that make a difference…
Legislation provides a framework
Gather evidence – set out the reasons
Individual leaders make it happen
Planning Authorities
But also - Agencies
- Development industry
- Communities
- Environmental bodies
Shape a vision – provide clarity
Find solutions - deliver the plan
How to articulate the vision – to communicate what you want to do and why?
Attitude, culture, communication

15. What in the Plan? What in the AP?
What? Where?
How? Who? When?
APs should stimulate action not just record progress 15

16. Project Management 5-yearly review LDPs within 2 years of SDP approval
Main Issues Report – Proposed Plan
9 Months
Proposed Plan - Examination
Examination and approval/adoption
5-yearly review
LDPs within 2 years of SDP approval
Up to now, development plans in Scotland have generally taken far too long to prepare and much of the country has been covered by out-of-date plans. The new Act places a legal duty on authorities to replace their plans every 5 years. So there will need to be a strong focus on rigorous project management to deliver plans quickly. All stakeholders have a role in assisting this, not just planning authorities.
The time taken to prepare plans will depend on the issues to be dealt with and the resources to devoted to the task. But we hope these sort of timescales should be achievable for most plans. READ
In city regions there are particular programming issues. We expect LDPs to become better aligned with SDPs, and to be adopted within 2 years of SDP approval. This will require some twin-tracking.

17. Insert maps of DP Progress
Progress and performance with new-style DPs
Key aim of new system was better coverage of up-to-date plans. This is current position

18. Lessons from initial plans
Rigorous project management
Clear on alternatives
Good use of maps/graphics
Detail on site specifics
Spatial & visionary - not thematic
New approach to product
Proportionate evidence base
Generic vision
Rush to publish MIR
Compendiums of policy
Gaps in evidence base
Too many ‘main’ issues
Too much/too little detail
Unrealistic on delivery
Action programmes an after-thought.

19. Next steps Planning Reform – Next Steps Examinations consultation
Review of SDPs
Identify and share best practice
LDP charrettes
Gateway Review

20. Delivering New Development Plans
Questions?
Suggestions?
Good examples?