As predicted, all participants in the planning system are now
subject to a degree of consultation overload as they struggle to
assimilate hundreds of pages of consultation documents and seek to
check whether and to what extent the new system includes any
glitches or unintended consequences. We are only about halfway
through. Several elements of the modernising planning agenda have
yet to be consulted upon. A clear message is coming out from the
Scottish Government that the principles behind the modernisation
reforms are simply not up for compromise. Most of the professional
bodies responding to consultees will raise the point again with
government that it would have been helpful to see the subordinate
legislation and guidance at the same time as the principal
legislation, and that if the lack of a co-ordinated approach gives
rise to difficulty or loss of momentum that is to some extent of
the government's own making.
No nook or cranny of the existing Scottish Land Use Planning
system is going to remain untouched by this spring tide of reform.
All professionals, whether they be in the local authority
framework, statutory consulting bodies, developers, architects and
other construction professionals, will all have to review their
engagement with the planning system and adapt their existing
procedures to ensure that expensive mistakes are not inadvertently
made. It will be difficult to obtain information from
under-resourced planning authorities, themselves struggling to
implement the new reform obligations on them, on any particular
course of action, and in all likelihood, everybody will have to
pull together to make the new system fit for purpose without loss
of momentum, or undue complexity in the development management
process.