Scottish Executive Consultation: Edinburgh Council's Response to Development Plans, Lecture notes of Project Management

Download Scottish Executive Consultation: Edinburgh Council's Response to Development Plans and more Lecture notes Project Management in PDF only on Docsity! + ED IN BVRG H + T H E CITY OF EDINBURGH C O U N C I L Item no 6 Report no PC1003104-051CD Scottish Executive Consultation Paper: Making Development Plans Deliver Planning Committee 5 August 2004 1 Purpose of report 1 .I To recommend a Council response to the Scottish Executive’s consultation paper Making Development Plans Deliver. 2 Summary 2.1 The Scottish Executive has published a consultation paper Making Development Plans Deliver which proposes a range of very significant changes to the form, content, procedures and management of development planning. These include replacing local plans with local development plans and replacing structure plans with city region plans, changing the way plan inquiries operate and plans are approved and adopted. Many of the suggested reforms can be supported, but others are too prescriptive and would constrain the ability of councils to determine locally the most appropriate structures and processes for managing development planning. 2.2 Many of the proposed changes to city regional planning would result in extra costs, including new examinations in public and the creation and running of statutory joint Committees with dedicated officer teams. Authorities must be given the additional resources to make these proposed arrangements work. 3 Main report Background 3.1 Committee has considered a series of reports in recent years on the Scottish Executive’s (SE) proposals for modernising the planning system (see background papers). The current SE consultation on Making Development Plans Deliver (MDPD) is part of that process and runs in parallel with the Rights of Appeal in Planning consultation which members considered in June. The context was set by the SE’s Review of Strategic Planning - Next Steps and Conclusions (June 2002) which set out the proposed new system of strategic plans for the four largest cities. 3.2 Having outlined the broad shape of the new system, the MDPD consultation paper seeks views on the detailed arrangements for strategic planning and ways in which the current system of local planning can become more effective. It has been prepared following discussions with local authorities and other stakeholders, particularly through seminars held at the Scottish Executive in April and November 2003. 3.3 Written comments are invited by 30 July 2004. This Committee meeting falls outside this deadline, but the SE has agreed to accept a response following Committee consideration. Copies of the consultation paper have been placed in Group Rooms. It can also be viewed on the web at: www.scot1and.qov.u klconsultations/planninq/mdpdc-0O.asp. The consultation was also the subject of a Members’ Workshop on 29 June with officials from SEDD. 3.4 The consultation sets 17 specific questions and a suggested CEC response to each is set out in Appendix 1. A number of general comments on points not covered by the set questions are also made. Main Proposed Changes Speedina UD Dreparation and review 3.5 The SE contends change is needed because development plans are not always up-to-date, take too much time to prepare, are too long and are often not effectively implemented by councils and other stakeholders. City Region Plans 3.6 City Region Plans (CRPs) would replace structure plans for the four largest city regions. They would be focused on a long term spatial strategy and four key land use topics. Statutory Joint Committees would be responsible for preparing CRPs, supported by dedicated officer teams. There would be a mandatory examination in public stage which the Joint Committee would fund. CRPs would continue to be approved by Ministers. 2 4 Financial Implications 4.1 As a consultation paper, there are no immediate financial implications for Council budgets. However, if its key provisions are implemented in future years, many would involve major additional costs to the Council such as running a dedicated Edinburgh City Region Plan team and funding mandatory C RP examinations. 5 Conclusions 5.1 This important consultation paper includes many proposals for reform which can be supported, but others go to the heart of local democracy and the principle of subsidiarity and should be reconsidered. 6 Recommendations 6.1 It is recommended that the Committee agrees that this report and Appendix 1 be forwarded to the Scottish Executive as the Council’s formal response to the consultation paper: Making Development Plans Deliver. Andrew M Holmes Director of City Development 5 Appendices Appendix 1 : CEC response to MDPD consultation paper Appendix 2: SE's Proposed City Region Plan Constituent Authorities Con tact/tel Ken Tippen (0131) 469 3613 k. tippcniidinburgh. gov.uk Wards affected All Background Papers 1 Report by Director of City Development to Planning Committee on Rights of Appeal in Planning, CEC, 3 June 2004 2 Report by Director of City Development to Planning Committee 12 June 2003, The Planning System: Modernisation, Best Practice and Performance 3 Scottish Executive Consultation Paper, Making Development Plans Deliver, April 2004 4 Modernising Public Local Inquiries: A Consultation Paper, Scottish Executive, June 2003 5 Scottish Executive White Paper: Your Place, Your Plan, March 2003 6 Rediew of Strategic Planning - Conclusions and Next Steps, Scottish Executive, June 2002 7 Report by Director of City Development to Planning Committee 13 March 2002, Scottish Executive Consultation Paper: Getting Involved in Planning 8 Scottish Executive consultation paper, Getting Involved in Planning, November 2001 9 Review of Strategic Planning, Scottish Executive, June 2001 KT/FM/PLANCOM REPORT : "SEDD Making Dev Plans Deliver" 5 AUGUST 2004 28 July 2004 6 APPENDIX 1 Response by The City of Edinburgh Council to Scottish Executive Development Department consultation Paper: “Making Development Plans Deliver”, April 2004 1 .o 1 .I 1.2 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Introduction The City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) welcomes this consultation paper and the opportunity to consider the proposed new arrangements for carrying out city- region and local planning. CEC has considered the issues raised in the paper within the context of the overall review of the operation of the planning system in Scotland and its own experiences in undertaking joint working on structure planning and rationalising its local plan coverage. General Response Many of the proposed initiatives and procedures are already built in to this Council’s practices, including comprehensive Action Plans (Rural West Local Plan, Edinburgh and the Lothians Structure Plan) and Project Briefs and targeted consultation in place of a draft plan (Edinburgh City Local Plan). CEC supports change that does not further erode local democratic accountability for plan-making and planning decisions, and does not impose an unreasonable additional financial burden on planning authorities. Many of the proposed changes to city regional planning would result in extra costs, including new examinations in public and the creation and running of statutory joint Committees with dedicated teams; authorities must be given the additional resources to make the proposed arrangements work. Some of the proposed changes are too prescriptive. There needs to be much more flexibility to allow individual councils, or councils working together, to determine locally the most appropriate structures and processes for managing development planning . The Lothians authorities’ model of flexible joint structure plan working has produced a well regarded plan to a challenging programme. It is therefore disappointing that the flexibility and efficiency benefits of this model have not been acknowledged in the consultation paper where the focus is exclusively on less flexible dedicated teams. The Lothians model should at least be available as an option. The Review of Strategic Planning exercise trailed the proposal that city region plans may identify site-specific development proposals. This current consultation does not mention this possibility and clarification is sought on this point. 7 Q3: What are the most effective ways to ensure quick preparation and review of development plans? Proposals Introducing a statutory duty to update plans within a defined period, limiting the primacy of the development plan after a set period, removing the right to charge fees on planning applications after a sei period after adoption/approval, linking good performance with additional resources. Response Preparation speeds would be increased if the number of procedural stages are reduced and stakeholder involvement more focused, consistent with ensuring effective participation. Local Plan Inquiries could be shortened through greater use of Written Submissions. The suggested measures imply that the problems in keeping plans up-to- date are solely due to the actions of local planning authorities. They are excessive and would be likely to be counter productive. It is important that there is flexibility to anticipate legitimate changes to plan programmes to accommodate new issues and variable levels of public participation. Not all aspects of project management are within planning authorities’ control; for example, the time taken by Ministers to approve structure plans has a significant bearing on plan timescales. 10 24: Do you agree that early targeted consultation on the key issues Proposals Consultation and engagement should be on basis of identifying the issues and options for change rather than a draft plan. Plan preparation should focus on two stages: early engagement 01 stakeholders on the key issues, leading to the preparation of a single “proposed plan” to which formal objections and or support can be made. It is also proposed to notify parties directly affected by land use proposals in the plan. This would bridge the gap between consulting on plans as a whole and notification of specific planning applications. Response Targeted consultation is supported in principle and should generally be preferred to a full-plan consultative draft stage. The option for councils to do either or both in response to local circumstances should however be retained. The Council is already pursuing this targeted approach with the Edinburgh City Local Plan where, following the publication of the project brief, a consultation paper will be issued later this year covering selected key plan issues and choices. Notifying parties of specific land use proposals in plans will need to be carefully defined to avoid imposing very significant cost and time burdens on authorities. The likely effect would be to increase participation in the plan-making process, but the inevitable consequence would be to extend the inquiry and preparation times generally, which would act against the paper’s stated aim of streamlining the process. This issue illustrates the central issue for development planning: the tensions between rapid preparation and maximising meaningful public and stakeholder participation. 11 75: Should these and any other bodies have a duty to engage in deve I o pm e n t plan n i n g placed u pon them? Proposals A statutory duty should be placed on key agencies to engage in development planning. While it would be desirable to move to greater alignment in investment programmes, a good start is ensuring that information relating to the delivery of sites and infrastructure for development is provided at the right time. The following bodies should be required to engage: H&S Executive, the LECs, SEPA, SNH and Scottish Water. Response Yes, but much more needs to be done to re-establish the link between plan-making and implementation. This should extend beyond a duty to engage which in itself will not overcome serious problems with the mismatch of infrastructure provision priorities; a mechanism needs to be developed to align the investment plans of relevant public bodies, Scottish Water in particular, and agencies with strategic development plans and the National Planning Framework. The SE itself has the key role here, as it approves infrastructure providers’ spending plans and approves structure plans. The list of bodies should also be extended to include the SE Roads Directorate, airport authorities and other key organ isat ions. 12 29: Do you agree that action planning is a continual process with formal publication of an action plan every two years? ro pos a I s rhere should be a statutory requirement to prepare an action plan for each -DP and CRP although no statutory approval for content will be necessary. 3esponse rhis Council supports the principle of preparing action plans and has leveloped best practice approaches to their preparation. APs have iccompanied recent CEC local plans and the Edinburgh and the Lothians Structure Plan. APs need to be regularly monitored and updated and a iennial cycle seems appropriate. The key to effective action planning is ;ecuring meaningful “buy-in” from key infrastructure providers and the ssues around this are discussed elsewhere in this response. 210:Outside the city regions, do you support the provision for an area-wide local development plan to set the overall context in areas where there continues to be a mosaic of local development plans? Proposals Authorities outwith city region plan areas should move towards area- wide Local Development Plans to better address common planning issues. Response There would seem to be merit in this suggestion, but the arrangements would not apply to this Council. Such plans would however make it easier for city region plan authorities to address cross-boundary and planning policy issues with authorities neighbouring the CRP. 15 Q1 I: Do you agree that, where it can be demonstrated that there has been community and other stakeholder consultation supplementary guidance should have a statutory backing? Proposals To provide a statutory basis for supplementary guidance, on whict there has been public consultation and subsequent approval by the Council. This will allay fears that supplementary guidance is used tc make policy by the back door. Response If city region and local development plans are both to be shorter and more focused on spatial issues, general, criteria-based policies will have to be contained outwith the development plan, eg the Council's award-winning affordable housing policy. It is vital that these policies retain full weight as material considerations. The main benefit of SPG is that it can be produced and updated relatively quickly. The Council is not persuaded that according full statutory weight to them is necessary as it could undermine the benefit of speedy production. For example, there may be a need to allow objectors to have their objections tested in an independent forum. The consequence would be that SPG could take much longer to produce and, if developed piecemeal, would divert excessive resources from plan-making. An alternative would be for the Scottish Executive to publish guidance in the form of a SPP or PAN that set out the Executive's views on what a SPG should contain and how it should be produced. Q12:Do you support greater consistency in the style of plans, : particularly proposals maps? P Proposals The style of current local plans varies widely. There are key elements which should be relatively consistent, as councils increasingly move towards internet publishing. Response A balance is needed between standardising those aspects of plan presentation that are genuinely common to most plans, and allowing each council or group of councils to present their plans innovatively and creatively, reflecting distinctive local situations. There is a clear role for the SE in identifying and disseminating best practice in plan presentation, particularly in terms of maximising the interactivity of I web-based material. 16 213: Under what circumstances should local authorities be allowed tc depart from the Reporter's recommendations on the local develoDment Dlan examination? Proposals As now, authorities would appoint reporters to carry out local plan inquiries and carry the costs of the process. But it is proposed thal the scope for councils to depart from the reporter's recommendations should be limited; only in exceptional circumstances should the recommendation be overturned or amended by the local authority. Response In the interests of local democracy, it is vital that the present scope for elected planning authorities to ultimately decide the best local development planning solution for their local areas is retained. Planning authorities are responsible for adopting local plans and should logically have the power to control their content. Introducing effectively binding reporters' recommendations would not be in the interests of local democracy and accountability. Procedures exist for Ministers to call-in local plans and determine their compliance with national policy and this provides sufficient checks and balances. There is an inconsistency between this proposal and the statement in the 2002 White Paper "Your Place, Your Plan", that the local plan belongs to the local authority (paragraph 63). If this procedure is to be adopted, then for consistency, Ministers' discretion to depart from Reporters' recommendations on CRPs should be similarly limited. 17 216:Do you consider that the proposed approval process will be quick and transparent? Proposals There would be a 2-stage approval process. CRPs would first be examined independently by reporters and them formally approved by Scottish Ministers as currently. The form of examination would be flexible and the paper suggests any oral examination would last a1 most 2 weeks. The Reporters’ findings would be published for objections and comment, prior to passing over to Ministers for the formal signing off stage of the approval process. Ministers would be expected to approve the plan, with modifications, within two months. Response The proposals would introduce a degree of transparency, but are unlikely to deliver time savings in reality. Structure Plan Examinations in Public have not been held in Scotland for many years. The requirement to carry out a mandatory examination could introduce delay into the process; in the case of this city region, a two week examination in public is likely to be a very significant underestimate, although it is accepted that the form and content could to some extent be controlled by the reporters. The costs of administering an examination would fall to the Joint Committee and represent a significant extra cost which would need to be compensated by the SE. 20 21 7: Are theproposed transitional arrangements appropriate? Proposals It is intended that new CRPs will be published within 18 months of new legislation and regulations coming into force. In the city regions, structure plans would remain in force for three years from legislation coming into force, or until replaced by an approved city-region plan, if earlier. A Planning Advice Note for city region planning will be published to support the implementation of the new plans. Response The purpose of imposing a three year limit on existing structure plans is unclear. Up to date plans would be likely to remain relevant beyond this period and should not be subject to an arbitrary cut-off point which could be counter-productive. For example, if there was an unforeseen delay in approving the CRP there could be no strategic plan to refer to. The approved ELSP builds in an early plan review, to be completed by 2008, and it is likely that this will be prepared with the full involvement of Fife and Scottish Borders Councils, in anticipation of the new arrangements. This would give the six councils a head start and the new CRP should be able to be ready in advance of the suggested three year cut-off date. 21 APPENDIX 2 CITY REGION PLAN CONSTITUENT AUTHORITIES (This map indicates the authorities that are required to work together on City Region Planning, not the actual boundaries o f the city region plans). CONSTITUENT AUTHORl TIES C-@ region plan for Aberdeen: Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils = City region plan for Dundee: Angus, Dundee City, Perth 8. Kinrass and Fife Councils C i t y regiori p lm far Edinburgh: City of Edinburgh, East Lothiati, Midlothian, West b th ian , Fife and Scottish 6orders Councils City region plan for Glasgow: East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow City, Iwverclyde, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, South Lanarkshire and West Dunbattonshire Councils 22