Accelerating home-building in Scotland
Overview
The Scottish Government is focused on speeding up the delivery of homes across the country. We urgently need to see more homes built, at a faster pace, now and in the years ahead. Scotland’s planning system must be an active enabler of the good quality development needed. Our planning system is set up to contribute to addressing the housing emergency, through enabling quality homes as a part of quality places with diversity of tenure.
On 2 September 2025 the Cabinet Secretary for Housing published the Housing Emergency Action Plan. This commits us to four planning actions to accelerate investment in new housing delivery, one of which is to “extend the planning consultation on accelerating build-out of new homes to specifically cover measures for smaller and medium enterprises (SMEs), as well as measures to increase volume of delivery”. This refers to one of the 23 actions in the Planning and the Housing Emergency Delivery Plan, to “identify mechanisms to stimulate the build-out of housing sites with planning permission, in line with a plan-led approach”. Our Programme for Government 2025 noted that this could include land assembly, build-out rates and fiscal measures.
This consultation is a starting point for a discussion about possible measures that could be deployed to accelerate the build-out of housing in Scotland. Informed by research in this area, and approaches in other administrations, it sets out a range of options on which we are now seeking views.
Depending on the outcome of this consultation, future action may include primary or secondary legislation. Legislative change will not be feasible until the next session of the Scottish Parliament. Any future actions would be subject to appropriate impact assessment
Read the consultation paper. The consultation paper contains full background information for this consultation. You may find it useful to read or refer to while responding.
Consultation questions preview
A summary of the consultation options and associated questions are included here for your reference. Please click 'Begin consultation' at the bottom of this page to proceed.
Option 1: Introduce fiscal measures to tackle inactivity or slow build-out.
Summary
- Applying a relief or supplement to taxes such as the Scottish Building Safety Levy (SBSL) or Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) where development is, or is not, built out to an agreed timeframe.
- Applying a tax on land which is allocated in LDPs, but which has not been brought forward in a planning application as per the programming submitted when the LDP and its Delivery Programme were being prepared. Consideration will need to be given to sites where there is no clear route to delivery or commitment to programming.
- Applying a tax on sites which have planning permission, but where there is no activity on site or progress is evidenced to be unreasonably slow.
Questions
1) Could fiscal incentives offering relief to other charges help to accelerate build-out rates? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer
(a) Which charges / taxes / levies could the incentives be applied to? Please explain your answer
(b) Should relief be in the form of full exemptions or variable rates? Full exemptions / variable rates. Please explain your answer
(c) Could a tax impact differently on different types of land owners? Please explain your answer
(d) Please provide any evidence of how fiscal measures linked to other charges would impact development finance to influence built out rates.
2) Should we introduce a tax on sites which have been allocated for residential development and/or have permission for homes, but are not being built out as expected, as set out in option 1? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.
(a) Should this apply to allocated sites, sites with permission, or both? Allocated sites/ Sites with permission/Both. Please explain your answer.
(b) How should the charge be calculated? Please explain your answer.
(c) Who should be required to pay the tax? Please explain your answer.
(d) Should the charge operate as a local or a national tax? Local tax/national tax. Please explain your answer.
(e) How should any income be used? Please explain your answer.
(f) Please provide any evidence of how a tax connected to sites allocated or permitted not being built out would influence build-out rates.
Option 2: Monitor build-out rates and intervene where these are unreasonably slow.
Summary
- Extend existing reporting requirements, to require a build-out statement/schedule and annual reporting of development progress (a “development progress report”) to planning authorities. This could support preparation, or review of housing land audits and LDP delivery programmes.
- Link these powers to cease planning permissions after an agreed or national fixed deadline, or where the planning authority considers progress to be unreasonable.
Questions
3) Should we bring forward powers for reporting on development progress and powers to intervene where it is considered to be unreasonably slow, as set out in option 2? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.
(a) Should this include creating a legal framework for reporting on development progress? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.
(b) Should there be a power for planning permission to be revoked, without compensation being payable, where reporting demonstrates that progress is unreasonably slow? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.
(c) How would the pace of development be set and agreed – for example how would reasonable-ness be measured? Please explain your answer.
(d) Please can you share any evidence of how reporting on development progress would influence build-out rates.
Option 3: Reduce procedural time and costs for SME developers.
Summary
- Enable application of a clearer proportionality framework, and reduce procedural time and costs for SME developers. This would involve increasing the granularity of the development hierarchy in order to draw out the specific circumstances in which the planning process for smaller sites could be varied.
- On smaller sites a range of measures could be deployed. For example:
- Building a process, through legislation, for fast-tracking applications on smaller sites.
- Reviewing and rationalising requirements in policy for smaller sites to allow developers to bring forward applications more quickly and at a lower cost. A rules based policy could sit alongside NPF4, setting out a simplified set of policy tests for very small and small sites to meet.
- Advice could be provided on planning application information requirements, setting clearer and more streamlined expectations nationally.
Questions
4) Should we bring forward legislation to amend the development hierarchy, to enable us to introduce more streamlined planning processes on planning applications for smaller sites, as outlined in option 3? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.
(a) How many categories should be defined by the development hierarchy, and what size of development should these cover? For example, four categories, that define major, medium, small and very small developments.
(b) What are your views on, and do you have any evidence relevant to whether creating more categories in the development hierarchy might have an overall effect of speeding up or slowing down build-out of housing?
(c) What are your views on whether we should review and rationalise policy requirements for smaller housing sites, or introduce a new rules based policy for smaller housing sites?
(d) Do you think that further advice on planning application information requirements would support faster delivery of housing on smaller sites? Yes/ No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.
(e) Do you think there are any further options that creating more categories in the development hierarchy might open up, further to those outlined in option 3? Yes / No / Unsure. Please explain your answer.
(f) Do you think that this measure would have any particular benefits for SME housebuilders? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.
Option 4: Diversify the housing outputs from deliverable land.
Summary
- Develop existing policy requirements to shape how sites are appraised and selected for allocation in LDPs, and how delivery expectations regarding diversity of housing type and tenure are then specified.
- Require a diversity of housing types and tenures on sites above a fixed size threshold.
Questions
5) Do you think that encouraging more diverse housing outputs across the pipeline of deliverable housing land would increase the pace of build-out? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.
(a) Should we use legislation to require a diversity of housing types and tenures on sites above a certain threshold? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.
(b) Do you think that this measure would have any particular benefits for SME housebuilders? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.
(c) Please provide any evidence of how increasing diversity would influence build-out rates.
Further options
6) Do you have any other suggestions for measures which could use levers available, or which could be put in place through the planning system, to deliver more homes at pace?
(a) Please provide any evidence of how these potential measures could influence build-out rates.
Useful information about responding to this consultation
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