Investing in Planning: a consultation on resourcing Scotland’s planning system

Properly scrutiny is paramount. The time it takes to do this properly should not be an issue.

A substantial rise in planning fees.

Why would it be otherwise? Everything increases in line with inflation.

This is a standard government benchmark

Major and National developments are all commercial and should bear the brunt of a rise in planning fees.

The local authority must be given the power to charge the applicant for their use of external consultants.

More work will be required which may also involve the use of external consultants.

Whilst all applications should incur a fee, EIA developments and those contrary to the Development Plan should incur a fee proportionate to the extra scrutiny required for determination of such applications.

It should be proportionate.

In an effort to stop appealing being an automatic response to any refusal, charging a high percentage of the original fee may make applicants think twice about appealing.

Currently, 118MW is now the average capacity of a wind farm in the planning system. This means that Scottish Ministers will shortly be determining all wind farm (and other renwable energy) applications. As many of these developoments are on public land, that is a gross conflict of interest as the Scottish Government stands to benefit from rent and business rates from those developments. Planning officers and Councillors know their own area better than Ministers in Edinburgh and should be allowed to make more decisions. Local decision making also allows and encourages more people to get involved in the planning system. The rise in threshold must also be accompanied by an increase in the ability of communities to influence planning decision as outlined in Petition PE1864

The acreage of land being used should be a consideration.

Greater use of external cconsultants may be required for complex applications.

Green hydrogen applications are complex and dangerous. They require an understanding of planning concepts, chemistry and health and safety. The definition of green hydrogen requires provision of a new dedicated renewable power source. These applications will in all probability be accompanied by other renwable generating components which will also requiring consent. Inland applications are also consume vast quantities of public water (not suitable as drought periods may be likely due to climate change) whilst coastal applications with desalination plants will consume even more electricity and produce potential adverse change to the marine environment.

See question 32. Hydrogen storage and distribution alone is more likely to be related to fossil fuel production. Health and Safety requirements will be different.

Little assessment is required but the fee must increase in line with inflation.

Little assessment required but must increase in line with inflation.

Scotland Against Spin