New figures have revealed the Scottish planning system is failing to deliver the number of homes needed in the country…

Statistics published by the Scottish government have highlighted failings in the planning system. According to the data the average decision time for major housing developments—classed as 50 homes or more—has increased by almost 18 weeks when compared to the previous quarter. However, it was quicker by more than 16 weeks when compared to the equivalent quarter last year.

Planning system failing to deliver

Homes for Scotland said the quarterly statistics showed failings in Scotland’s planning system. Head of planning Tammy Adams said: “These figures show that Scotland’s planning system is becoming less well equipped to deal with applications for major housing developments, which are key to providing the thousands of homes which our growing population desperately needs.

“The delivery of these homes should be seen as a golden thread running through the planning system but, with average decision times slowing to 48.3 weeks (three times the statutory period of 16 weeks), this is simply not the case.”

However, the government said the average time was warped by nine applications that had been waiting on a decision for more than a year. The government said more than 70 per cent of the 30 major housing development applications had been given a decision faster than the average.

Furthermore, 15 major applications had been subjected to processing agreements with six of these meeting agreed time scales.

Local development decision times reduced

The data also revealed the average decision time for local housing developments reduced by more than two weeks when compared to the previous quarter. This represented the quickest average decision time since this data started being collated in Q1 2012/2013.

There were 1,262 decisions made on local housing applications that were decided during Q1 2016/2017. The average time was 12.5 weeks. Comparatively, the previous quarter had a wait time of 14.7 weeks.

There were 89 local housing applications subjected to processing agreements. A total of 66 of these met agreed timescales.

Adams added: “These statistics confirm the urgent need to ensure the planning system responds effectively to address Scotland’s significant housing shortfall.

“It must do better to support the Scottish Government’s aspiration to see a significant increase in home building to ensure housing requirements are met across the country – and enable it to meet the First Minister’s ambition of delivering 50,000 new affordable homes over the course of this Parliament.

“HFS is committed to working with the Scottish Government and other stakeholders to get to the root cause of the problem and ensure effective solutions are identified and put into practice.”