Borders Local Development Plan faces a new issue

by DOUGLAS SHEPHERD

Town planning specialists are warning of "turmoil and confusion" with Local Development Plans becoming out of date following the decision by Scottish Ministers to reject strategic proposals on housing and transport for the whole of South-east Scotland.

Scottish Borders Council is just one of the authorities certain to be affected after SESplan2, a 400-page document outlining future plans up to 2030 in the Edinburgh City Region was deemed to be flawed.

A planning consultant with many years experience and who has worked on issues in the Borders told us: "Where things will get more problematic for SBC is the emerging Local Development Plan Two (LDP2).  They have prepared a Main Issues Report and consulted on it but the new LDP needs to be consistent and aligned with the Strategic Plan for the wider region. 

"Furthermore, planning reform will introduce further change with proposed abolition of strategic plans and longer ‘shelf lives’ for LDPs.  This all indicates uncertainty and delay for Development Planning in the Scottish Borders".

And Douglas Hope, a former top planning official in the Borders, writing on his Scottish Borders Planning blog said: "It was proposed in the council’s Development Plan Scheme of March 2019 that the proposed LDP2 would be published in the autumn/winter of 2019/2020.  With the rejection of SESplan 2, this programme has been placed in doubt.  It will be interesting to see how the council intends to proceed.

"Scottish Ministers have put development planning in the south east of Scotland, including the Scottish Borders, into a state of confusion with the rejection of the Strategic Development Plan (SESplan 2), submitted in June 2017."

Mr Hope explained how on May 16th the Scottish Government’s Chief Planner announced that Scottish Ministers were not satisfied that the proposed SESplan 2 had been properly informed by an adequate and timely Transport Appraisal and that it did not take sufficient account of the relationship between land use and transport. 

It was the view of Scottish Ministers that the Plan did not properly acknowledge and address the region’s infrastructure constraints to support the spatial strategy for delivering housing land across the area.  And it did not include sufficient information on the transport interventions required to support the spatial strategy.

SESplan 2 was assembled by planning authorities across the vast region over four years to guide planning decisions into the future.It was submitted to the government for approval in June 2017.

A letter signed by Scotland's chief planning officer John McNairney cites three reasons for refusing the plan:

"Ministers are not satisfied that the plan was informed by an adequate and timely transport appraisal. It does not take sufficient account of the relationship between land use and transport.

Ministers do not support the use of supplementary guidance to resolve this issue."

The letter refers to paragraph 274 of Scottish Planning Policy, which states the transport appraisal should be carried out in time to inform the spatial strategy of the plan. Adoption of the plan ahead of the preparation of supplementary guidance on transport is not an acceptable solution. Mr McNairney said: “I recognise that the authorities will have significant concerns about the implications of this decision for planning in their areas."

Planning consultants Lichfield's commented on their website: “The rejection of the plan at this time will be a hindrance to local authorities in the area who have awaited approval of SESplan 2 before progressing their own Local Development Plans. This will likely result in development plans across the city region becoming out of date.”

However, the Scottish Government had voiced its dissatisfaction with the shortcomings in transport mitigation measures in a submission to Reporters who examined the plan prior to July 2018.

In that submission the Government said: "The Transport Appraisal (TA) undertaken for the SDP (Strategic Development Plan) fails to recognise, or identify transport interventions required to support delivery of the impact of the spatial strategy given the longstanding issues with SDP1, and does not identify specific infrastructure measures to mitigate the SDP2 allocations.

The TA effectively defers to the SDP1 focussed Cumulative Cross Boundary Study (CBS) to provide such details and information and fails to clearly identify the mitigation measures required on the trunk road network to support delivery of the SDP allocations, and how they will be funded and delivered. SDP2 TA report fails to identify the infrastructure required to deliver the SDP strategy, which, given the lack of information on this within SDP1, is a significant issue.

"Overall the Appraisal states 'the strategic impacts are widely distributed and relatively minor', yet the evidence presented suggested there are several junctions along the A720 trunk road which are forecast to exceed capacity with no mitigation measures identified. TA work undertaken for SDP2 requires providing a greater level of detail. It is not appropriate that subsequent LDPs should be left to identify mitigation measures."

And in her conclusions, Inquiry Reporter Sinead Lynch stated: "I understand Scottish Government’s concern that the Transport Appraisal does not identify the specific measures required to deliver the spatial strategy of this Plan. In looking at the overall conclusions of the Appraisal, it appears that there are mitigation measures on the road network within the region which remain to be addressed, and where the level of detail provided appears minimal."