The scale of a project determined the average length of time it took it decide the outcome of planning applications in Scotland, according to new data…
According to new statistics local developments have seen the average time taken to decide the outcome of planning applications speed up. However, major developments in Scotland have taken longer to gain a decision than the previous year.
The figures, which were released by Scotland’s Chief Statistician, found that decisions for smaller developments such as household extensions and small retail units took on average 10.1 weeks during 2014/15. This was three days quicker than the year before.
Local housing developments also gained ground, with average times improving by 5 days to 14.5 weeks. Year-on-year improvement in the average decision time of local developments was reported by 22 out of 34 planning authorities.
Decision times for developments of 50 or more homes, for larger retails projects, and some waste, water, transport, and energy-related schemes did not fair as well. On average projects were two weeks slower in 2014/15 than the previous year, taking 36.6 weeks to gain a decision.
However, major housing developments saw average times improve by four days to 41.3 weeks. Improvements were also seen for electricity generation and waste management developments.
The figures are slightly misleading, as the statistics revealed more than 70 per cent of major applications in 2014/15 were decided more quickly than the average of 36.6 weeks, but that these figures were skewed by a few lengthy decisions.
In 2014/15, the number of local development decisions totalled 29,738. This was a decrease of one per cent from the previous year. The research said the drop was due to fewer electricity, business and industry, and other local applications.
Major developments in the same period totalled 298. This was a drop of four per cent from the previous year and was attributed to fewer electricity generation applications.
Approvals for all types of application was 93.9 per cent during the period 2014/15. Comparatively, the previous year had an approval rate of 94.1 per cent, which was the highest since 2011 when the rate hit 92.9 per cent.