Highland planners rapped over three year delays

A SENIOR council official has defended the local authority’s record on determining major housing schemes in the Highlands, after it emerged the planning authority is taking more than three years to reach decisions.

Figures published by the Scottish Government yesterday showed that major housing applications nationally take an average period of almost 77 weeks to be given the green light or rejected.

But the Highland figure is 159 weeks – the time it took to decide six big housing developments – which is almost three years more than the four month target set by the government.

A house builders trade body has described the average 77 week figures as an “outrage” and called on the government to urgently investigate the delays.

Malcolm MacLeod, the council’s head of planning and building standards, admitted the figures were disappointing but said its performance overall in dealing with thousands of applications had improved in the last year.

Mr MacLeod said the delays were largely because of complex talks aimed at thrashing our legal agreements with developers on issues like road improvements and affordable housing.

“I don’t think the criticism is fair because it is not just purely down to the planning authorities,” said Mr MacLeod, who added it was now reviewing its systems to see where it could do better.

“We know we have to improve as a planning authority.”

The planning department has dealt with large housing schemes like

the controversial Tornagrain development off the A96 between Inverness and Nairn which could eventually become home to 10,000 people.

It was approved by councillors in September despite an earlier row that a previous planning committee decision had been railroaded through, three years after the developer Moray Estates submitted the massive scheme, which includes almost 5000 homes, for consent.

Mr MacLeod said there had been complex negotiations surrounding other big housing applications like a 188-property scheme in Dornoch and a development Conon Bridge.

Allan Lundmark, planning director for Homes for Scotland, claimed the planning system was “strangling” investment and said it came when the country was in a housing crisis because only 15,000 new homes were built last year, despite 160,000 people on housing waiting lists.

“Thousands of new, warm sustainable homes are desperately needed across all tenures the length and breadth of the country,” he said. “Scotland’s home builders stand ready to provide them but facing the worst market conditions in living memory these figures support our own internal research and confirm that the planning system is strangling rather than facilitating what little investment is available.”

Donald McLachlan, president of the Highland Building Employers Association, said the challenging market conditions meant developers were taking their time and being ultra cautious before proceeding with any major scheme to make sure there were house buyers available.

“To be fair I have never been aware of the council digging their heels in, they are usually very thorough,” said Mr McLachlan.