Scottish house builders ‘worried’ by delay to local development plans as nearly half of councils set to miss deadline

Under national policy, development on unallocated sites can only be granted permission in “limited circumstances”, prompting planning consultants Lichfields to deem LDPs “essential for new housing delivery” in a recent blog.

Dr Brown, a director at the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), made the comments yesterday after a question on what success from the next Scottish parliament would look like from a planning perspective.

She said: “We have to get to grips with local [development] plans, that is a big issue in relation to the supply of housing land in the future.”

Dr Brown added: “A lot of development plans are likely to miss the target in 2028, so, again, the housebuilding sector is very worried about their forward supply of land to be able to build without those plans in place.

“So I think success would also be about resolving that.”

She also said clarity is needed on national planning policy for unallocated land, covered in Section 16 of the National Planning Framework 4, describing this as “a big issue for some of the house builders”.

“There is pressure from the housebuilding side to resolve that tension, it would be good to have some clarity about that, whether that’s going to be amended, softened, whatever,” Dr Brown added.

“So I think something around the policy and the... integrity of the policy, because people are asking for this to be resolved and the government is resisting, and the chief planner is resisting.”