Following its first meeting earlier this year, the group has put together a set of action points, which we publish below, that has been sent to Argyll and Bute Council.

The issues are revealing and will be of interest to readers in Argyll and further afield.

A GENERAL STATEMENT REGARDING FINANCING

What has been clear over a number of years is that the Planning department has had successive cuts that in particular affect small and medium scale development. This has a serious effect on the majority of smaller, Private Sector development. This is not a new problem and concerns have been raised at previous Pre-Covid Forums and by individual complaint.

However, the current situation, with the Post Covid backlog, uptake in small scale extensions, home offices etc…, changing population choices from expansion of the base, combined with further cuts in the department has provided a perfect storm and has created an unprecedented situation that led to this meeting.

The first and most important point therefore is that there needs to be more investment for additional permanent and senior posts in the Planning Department which cannot function properly without more provision.

Following that should be properly funded structural changes to build a better identity for this department, to improve morale, attract young talent, and train them to be the council’s future ATL’s. Across the board Argyll and Bute is suffering from an ageing population and decline in services, so a positive message from an efficient and progressive planning department which removes obstacles and welcomes new and sustainable development has more chance of attracting people to live and invest in Argyll and Bute.

SOLUTIONS & ACTIONS

Some solutions relate to streamlining the system to free up more of the limited time that the Officers have by making the process more efficient and cost effective for the council.

Others are about providing a better service by relaying information in a more regular and accessible way, thereby cutting out wasteful communication.

STREAMLINING AND EFFICIENCY MEASURES

PRE-APP ADVICE: 

Given the need to be more efficient, the Pre-app advice service should be adapted to better assist the Agents and Officers. It is a good vehicle for understanding the aims of a project quickly. Suggest initial fee for a meeting and then advice at that meeting on a tiered system with an escalating fee scale. Using this system correctly should remove unnecessary report writing for simple cases which could be dealt with by email, and also accelerate applications that have successfully used one of the higher tiers, when they go to full planning.

SIGN OFF: 

The system that collates cases that have passed to ATL for sign off should be improved so that it is not possible for projects at the bottom of the pile to be ignored. It is those applications that cause the most distress and the council should judge itself on its slowest cases, not the quickest, for an indication of success.

EXTANT APPLICATIONS: 

Following on from the above, there was a suggestion that extant or outstanding, undetermined applications that are more than 2 years old should be ingathered and offloaded to an external contractor or dedicated internal staff in order to lighten the current backlog on officers.

OBJECTIONS: 

The problem with the current 16-week determination timescale is that it encourages continual objection well beyond the 21-day timeframe. The council states on its website, ‘In general, the publicity and consultation period last for 21 days. We cannot guarantee that any comments received after this period will be given consideration.’ Other councils are not so vague, and stress that objections MUST be made in the 21-day period. Some also make it clear that although they will take material planning considerations into account, they won’t enter into correspondence with individual objectors.

Some Councils also count individual people from the same address as one objection. All the above may of course be different to the actual, legal position regarding valid material planning objections but why encourage anything outside 21 days? Therefore, if the council considered some kind of rewording on the website, then it may discourage late representations, duplication, and the requirement for direct correspondence by the Officers to Objectors. 

ROADS: 

Comprehensive guidance for the accepted Road standards should be provided and published. Officers and Agents should be able to identify issues with more empirical information and only then refer to the Roads department for further consultation?

COMMUNICATION AND RELAYING INFORMATION

GENERALLY:

Better communication all round. At the moment it is generally unacceptable. A phone call or quick email, although seemingly time-consuming can circumnavigate a problem and put people’s expectation on the same page. This is one where Agents can help manage the process by relaying good communication back to a client, particularly on progress or expected timescales.

DETERMINATION TIMESCALES:

Headline figures for average determination timescales should be made more accessible on the council website (suggest the council planning/building standards main page.) Communication needs to be improved where there are workload pressures with customers of the Planning Service including clients of agents.

CONDITIONS:

On determining cases the model conditions should be revised, removing cases where it is obviously not possible to implement the conditions. Conditions imposed should meet the 6 tests for competency and that where there is a significant obligation or any doubt over ability to implement then those conditions should ideally be subject to advance discussion.

FORUMS:

Encouragement of re-establishing User Forums between the Planning Service (validators, Officers, ATLs etc…)  and Agents for discussion of any individual topic in order to make the system more streamlined and efficient.

• Share your experiences of Scotland’s planning system, in confidence, to SCN editor Kieran Findlay via k.findlay@scottishnews.com.