What do Scottish Planning Policy changes mean for housing?

Labour’s victory in the recent General Election means that planning, specifically in the context of housing, is a trending issue in the world of politics. The Government is aiming to deliver 1.5 million new homes in England alone over the next five years, and in Scotland the Government has recently followed the lead of some councils and declared a national housing emergency.

However, whereas the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has restored five-year housing targets in England, in Scotland, NPF4 emphasises a plan-led approach based on LDP housing allocations meeting ten year requirements set out in Local Housing Land Requirement (LHLR) or Minimum All-Tenure Housing Land Requirement (MATHLR) figures. This reverses the previous approach of five-year effective housing land and the principle of “tilted-balance” which, in certain circumstances, supported the granting of planning permission to unallocated sites when authorities failed to meet housing targets.

To secure the delivery of housing with the urgency that is required, it is critical that key constraints which prohibit residential development are removed through the development of the necessary ancillary infrastructure such as sewage, drainage, roads and more. Without this, more housing cannot and will not be delivered and, as the Mossend Judgement confirmed, there is no opportunity under NPF Policy 16 for other sites to come forward (apart from in limited circumstances).

Quite rightly, the Scottish Government and its agencies have emphasised that this means co-ordinating activities between local government departments, their agencies and infrastructure providers, leveraging additional funds where available, to overcome development constraints. However, past experience suggests that this collaborative approach is optimistic, since each organisation will have its own priorities and funding for infrastructure will continue to be limited. We have seen the latter with the UK Government cutting funding projects to address deficits in Government finances. As such, we cannot expect the Government to make any sort of major funding available in the short-term future.

Where does that leave us? The prognosis for new housing development for sites which are “in the right place” but currently constrained by infrastructure is poor. Under NPF4 and Mossend there is no prospect that significant shortfalls in housing supply can be addressed through applications for new housing on unallocated sites.

However, we think a collaborative approach between planning authorities and the private sector could assist in overcoming some of these resource difficulties. The private sector – landowners and developers – may be able to assist in supporting the public sector in removing development constraints. This will require a degree of compromise on the part of both the private and public sectors – in return for developers bearing the burden of the additional costs that come with taking responsibility for development constraints, the public sector may have to accept that certain sites which would not be their first choice for housing are developed.

Authorities are now actively preparing their new LDPs – all will, in the next few months, be “calling for ideas”. This is the right time for proactive and ongoing engagement between these authorities and the private sector to identify opportunities that can support the allocation of sites and the funding or delivery of infrastructure that will help to overcome the existing housing “crisis”.

Without this it is our fear that, rather than resolve the issues in delivering housing, the current system as set out under NPF4 may actually exacerbate these issues, resulting in further under-supply of housing in Scotland.

If you have housing land in Scotland or want to discuss how infrastructure solutions might help unlock potential housing sites, feel free to get in touch at khargest@gravisplanning.com.