A new Housing Planning Hub in Scotland will increase the rate at which homes with planning permission are delivered, stimulating housing supply and supporting economic growth, it was claimed yesterday.
Three times the number of current student bursaries will also be made available to encourage more future planners and address staff shortages.
On average 29,000 homes have been given planning permission in Scotland every year, more than the 25,000 industry experts are calling for.
The Housing Planning Hub will tackle the reasons for delays, which include waits on decisions for major developments, lengthy negotiations of Section 75 agreements, funding issues, or policy requirements to address issues such as flooding or biodiversity.
HOUSING EMERGENCY
Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee outlined the actions to Parliament yesterday and told MSPs: “Planning has not created the housing emergency, but it can help us to find solutions to the challenges we are facing.
“The Scottish Government is focused on working with partner organisations to identify how our planning system can help to provide these solutions.
“This decisive and properly targeted action, based on evidence, will provide more homes and better places for people to live in.”
REFORMING PLANNING IS KEY
Timothy Douglas, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Propertymark, says: “Reforming Scotland’s planning system is key to making housing more affordable and measures to create a new planning hub and increasing the capacity of local authorities by training additional planners to accelerate planning applications will help build the homes that Scotland needs.”
NOT THE ONLY SOLUTION
But he adds: “As the Minister said, planning isn’t the only solution to unlock more homes in Scotland and solve the housing crisis.
“Reviewing the tax people pay when purchasing property, bringing more empty homes back into use through financial grant support, building more social homes, introducing tax incentives to encourage investment in the private rental sector as well as requiring local authorities to have a plan for retirement housing and incentivising people to right size can also boost the supply of homes. Propertymark will continue to call for action in these areas.”
