Respondents to an SCN survey found that 96.3% of the country’s architects, housebuilders, developers and planning consultants believed that their businesses had suffered because of local authority planning delays, with the same percentage stating that the delays have increased since the Covid pandemic. Almost all of the respondents (99.3%) do not believe that the situation will improve.

Sharing their experiences with SCN, readers highlighted the working practices of those in local authority planning departments.

One weary builder records his firm’s experience: “You get the same excuse, that is if they even respond, — lack of staff and under-resourced and WORKING from home (working being the questionable word in that statement). Too often, junior staff who have no mentor to turn to request spurious information or commit errors in even registering an application.”

He continues: “They worked as teams before Covid now they work as individuals so there is no continuity even in the same authority. The smaller the project the bigger the delay. A recent example was a small extension that should have been approved (recommended initially for approval) at the end of June - this was delayed until July. It was delayed going to the committee until August and then delayed again until September. Why? — the planning officer is going on holiday!

“When we advised we would be making a complaint to the Scottish Office…. approval was granted in August!!!! We shouldn’t need to complain but five months for an application that by the Planning Act should only take 2 months!”

A leading construction professional echoes these sentiments and relates shocking delays: “The planning system is broken in Scotland. The planners’ default position is to delay, to be negative and unhelpful and to be as defensive as possible. I suspect, at best, the attitude is in part due to the unproductive environment where planners and their superiors are still allowed to work from home. (or walk the dog / play golf / watch daytime TV).

“Wake up, we are all back at work. Errors in dealing with applications are widespread but there is no accountability. The review process following a refusal can take years and it appears the Local Review Committee members made up of local councillors are heavily influenced by the planners who guide them with no transparency or ability of the applicant to be heard at meetings.

“Development should be encouraged especially new build affordable housing on brownfield land. I have had three sites take three years each with no positive outcome to provide almost 60 affordable homes on brownfield sites with no apparent valid reasons for refusal. Developers are pulling back from submitting applications and it’s because of the planning attitude from the top to the bottom. They just don’t care!”

Another builder notes: “The typical response time from planning departments in our experience has now reached an average of 12 months with planning officers still working from home, complaining about their workload and deploying delay tactics to intentionally slow down the process. This is having costly impacts for developers and is also slowing down the economy.”

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SCN is still keen to hear your experiences of Scotland’s planning system. Please send any correspondence, in confidence, to SCN editor Kieran Findlay via k.findlay@scottishnews.com.