We are entering the early stages of the city’s next Local Development Plan, City Plan 2040. Community groups are being asked to express their early opinions, for example through Local Place Plans. The pace of development in the city is quickening. The scope for differences in opinion on what constitutes ‘good’ development is widening, across the scale. For community groups pitched against planners and developers, the need is to be ‘up with events’ and current with how ‘the system’ works. (This is very much the case for community councils.) In particular, the hinge is what are to be regarded as ‘material planning considerations’.
Turn, please, to the help offered by Planning Aid Scotland and to the valuable information sheet resource on the website: https://www.pas.org.uk/resources/ Information sheet 3 covers ‘Material Considerations’. In a wider context, you will also find helpful a Midlothian Council publication: ‘The Scottish Planning System – A Handbook (2022): https://www.midlothian.gov.uk/downloads/file/4623/midlothian_planning_handbook
Note the current framework for community councils as a ‘consultee’.From Highland Council (Guide to the planning system for community councils.)
“Community Councils are able to comment on any planning application. There are very specific circumstances in which the Community Council has a right to be a statutory consultee in the development management process. These are:
• Where the community council, within 7 days of receipt of the weekly list, informs the planning authority that it wishes to be consulted;
AND/OR • The development is likely to affect the amenity in the area of the Community Council.
Whether considered a statutory consultee or not your views are important to the process and will be taken into account regardless. The key difference for a Community Council as to whether it is a statutory or non-statutory consultee can be found in the Council’s Scheme of Delegation. This establishes, where a Community Council, as a statutory consultee, objects to a proposal it must be determined by Committee rather than by officers.”
EACC is in conversation with CEC on the provision of training on the planning system for community councils.
(KR)