Yasmin Ali

Last month planning professionals and stakeholders from across Scotland met for a one-day intensive conference, to discuss the effects and potential effects,of the Planning Reform Act in Scotland (2006).

The day was split into four sessions, as chaired by journalist and broadcaster Keith Aitken, and opened with an address from Aileen Campbell MSP.

The morning sessions comprised of talks centering on a brief retrospective of the effects of the reform to date, followed by -an interactive panel debate questioning 'Is the new system working?'.The first session, entitled 'So Far So Good ', reflected on the successes - and shortcomings- of the new planning reform system in Scotland.

Session 1: 'So Far So Good?'

Glasgow City Council's Head of Planning Alastair MacDonald began with an informative, illustrated talk which summarised the effects of the 2006 Act, from a local government perspective, as observed by Glasgow. Generally, the new system is seen in a positive light, and appreciated as having cut down on red tape considerably, increased efficiency and reduced the number of complaints from Neighbour Notifications.

Read on for more on the sessions.

The previous system was highly bureaucratic with agents (typically architects) sometimes obliged to send up to forty different reports as supporting documentation for large-scale projects to achieve planning permission. The new guidelines focus on more pre-application consultative discussions, resulting in clearer communication, better transparency between professionals and less abortive work. All this is seen as conducive to a more collaborative - or at least less adversarial - relationship between architects and planners. Ultimately it seems the planning reforms are making the discipline of planning less procedural, thereby giving breathing space for less determinate, more interesting ideas to flourish. 'Don't blunt creativity by process', was a key message of this talk.

Prof.Greg Lloyd, Head of School of Built Environment from the University of Ulster, gave a fascinating and lively speech, designed to be provocative. His polemic berated the weaknesses of the systems in Scotland, but acknowledged its strengths over England's planning system, now disparate and dominated by the Localism Bill (2010). Lloyd charted trends in Scotland to its history of pre-devolution policy-making, and praised its aspirations as ambitious and innovative, despite questioning its perceived successes and potential. His view was ultimately a negative one; ending on Irish Times' Journalist Gareth Fitzgerald's words: 'Apocalypse may yet spark the rebirth of a civil mortality', implying that the system will fail before it is put right.

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