Scottish Development Planning: On the Brink of Change?

The planning system in the United Kingdom (UK) is facing major changes. These are driven by a number of factors. One is undoubtedly the introduction of various forms of devolved government. For example, Scotland has had, since 1999, a parliament that can pass primary legislation for a range of devolved issues, one of which is land-use planning. Wales has an assembly that, whilst it cannot pass primary legislation, has implementation responsibility for a range of services, including planning, and can enact secondary legislation. Within England, whilst proposals to set up regional assemblies have yet to come to fruition, the setting up of the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) may be a step towards greater regional autonomy (Mawson, 2000). In parallel with these changes to governance structures there is increasing concern about the effectiveness of the planning system, especially its impact upon economic development. There is a view in government that the effectiveness of the system needs to be improved whilst enhancing the quality of both decision making and the resultant developments (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), 1998; The Scottish OfŽ ce, 1999). The outcome of these changes and political pressures is the recent publication of a number of consultation papers outlining reforms to the planning systems in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, 2001; Scottish Executive, 2001a; The National Assembly for Wales, 2002; The Planning Service, 2002). Of these, those for England, Northern Ireland and Wales deal with the whole of the planning system. That for Scotland, the focus of this paper, deals only with development planning, especially strategic plans. Although all four papers differ in the ‘solutions’ they outline for the system, there is a considerable similarity in the problems identiŽ ed. For example, the system is said to be complex, with multiple layers of guidance and plans that often seem to be cumbersome and irrelevant; despite the amount of documentation, policies lack clarity; plans are out of date and take far too long to produce; decision making is slow; and, despite the system being “very ‘consultative” ’ (Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, 2001, para. 2.5), paradoxically it fails to engage with the community. In addition to these ‘top-down’ changes, there is also evidence of change coming from the operational level as those responsible for delivering the system respond to its perceived inadequacies by changing the type of development plans they produce. For example within Scotland, despite there being a two-tier development plan system (of strategic-level structure plans and local plans which deal with sitespeciŽ c detail), a growing number of authorities are producing unitary plans. At the detailed level the recently published draft Glasgow City Plan (Glasgow City Council, 2001), seems to