Flood Risk Management

Worth a look - Published June 2011

Extract from Ministerial foreword:

Important milestones over the past 4 years have included record levels of investment in flood

protection by local authorities, creation of a new flood forecasting service for Scotland, and

investment into research to improve our understanding of more natural approaches to

tackling flooding. In addition, a new approach to providing advance flood warnings to the

public was successfully launched earlier this year.

This guidance is another important milestone in implementing the Act and improving how we

cope with and manage floods. Delivering sustainable flood risk management sets out

statutory guidance to SEPA, local authorities and Scottish Water on fulfilling their

responsibilities under the Act and, in particular, on the steps that should be taken to manage

flooding in a sustainable manner.

This guidance should form the blueprint upon which SEPA, local authorities and Scottish

Water and any other future responsible authorities will deliver their flood risk management

responsibilities.

Extract from main text:

Public engagement and participation needs to be ongoing and regularly refreshed, seeking to attract attention and changes in behaviour without causing undue alarm. At all times, it must be based on clear, accurate information, and presented in simple and engaging language.

In collaboration with the Scottish Flood Forum and the Insurance Industry, SEPA, and the responsible authorities should help local community groups take some responsibility for their own awareness campaigns and flood preparation.

More here

Green Networks

Extract from here

An innovative new approach to planning will guide future major development in the Highlands and in particular the Inverness and Inner Moray Firth areas. The Highland Council and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) have been working to produce guidance on ‘green networks’ to complement the Highland-wide Local Development Plan.

Green networks are webs of green spaces and green corridors within and around towns and villages and the wider countryside. These help enhance an area's wildlife and quality of life for people in the area. The new guidance sets out how developers can take green networks into account in design proposals, the council’s role in assessing planning applications, and ways in which developer contributions can be sought.

More on this subject on the Scottish Government web site here

SSCI Charrette announcement; no Sandown?

Building on the SSCI Charrette Series which ran in March 2010, the Scottish Government has launched a new charrette programme, aimed at mainstreaming this approach to development in the built environment within Scottish design and planning practice.

Following the submission of 12 projects for the Mainstreaming Programme, the initial projects which have been selected to participate in the initiative are:

• Callander: Proposer, The Callander Partnership on behalf of Callander Community Council
• Johnstone South West: Proposer, Renfrewshire Council
• South Carrick , Girvan: Proposer, South Ayrshire Council

Rest here

Demolition

For those who may need to know:

THE TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

(DEMOLITION WHICH IS NOT DEVELOPMENT)

(SCOTLAND) REVOCATION DIRECTION 2011

(Planning Circular 4 - July 2011)

Dear George

From Scottish Gov web page:

Dear George

Following the publication of the latest GDP figures yesterday highlighting that the strength of the recovery in the UK remains weak, I am writing to urge the UK Government to do more to accelerate the recovery...

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2011/07/27145951

Northern Ireland population at 30 June 2010

Complete item here

The Northern Ireland population at 30 June 2010 is estimated to be 1.799 million people, the Statistics and Research Agency said today.
~ Thursday, 30 June 2011

This is the last official population estimate released before the publication of the first results of the 2011 Census.

In the period 2004-8, net migration accounted for 50% of population growth. With migration currently in the balance, population growth is now solely due to natural change.

Responding to the findings a Statistics and Research Agency spokesperson said: “Migration to Northern Ireland has fallen over the last three years. Last year the overall impact of migration on the total number of people living in Northern Ireland was zero. Despite that 22,500 people came to live here and 22,500 left Northern Ireland to live elsewhere. This in contrast to the years between 2004 and 2008 when there was marked population growth due to migration – when a net total of 32,000 people were added to the population.”

Corridor of Power

Missed this BBC item from January 2011

New Scottish Open host Castle Stuart Golf Links lies within a strip of land with a bloody past and, in the future, could become one of the most developed areas of the Highlands and Islands.

Known as the A96 Corridor, the strip covers several hundreds of acres stretching between Inverness and Nairn and flanked by the Moray Firth and the B9006 road.

Highland Council has produced a masterplan to guide development in the area over the next 30 years.

What has already been planned could make the corridor powerful in terms of job creation and the delivery of further education in the region.

More here

At Last! Something to get your teeth into - latest Examiner's request and Council response

Well after my very recent post regarding the fact that the Reporter's must be hard at work there are a couple of additional pieces of correspondence on the Examination web page

A letter on behalf of Reporters dated 06 07 2011 which begins:

The reporters have not yet studied all of the material placed before them, but so far they have noted three representations (numbers 183, 229 and 488) that express concern about the clarity of the plan. In these representations there is reference to a belief that the current plan approach will cause confusion, a suggestion that all site-specific policies and mapping be deleted from the plan and a request that chapters 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 & 17 be deleted from the plan.

The reporters note the council’s response to these representations. This includes recognition that the plan is an unusual hybrid of strategic and site- specific policies and the statement that this will be a one-off process aimed at streamlining planning policy. The council points out that there is to be one set of general policies along with site-specific updates for areas where there is high development pressure.

The representations noted in the Letter above are found on the Council's web page here which provides the individual links as below:

HWLDP-PP-183 - Mackay Robertson and Fraser Partnership (Martin Mackay Solicitors) (pdf, 3601kb)

HWLDP-PP-229 - Balnagowan Estate (Strutt and Parker) (pdf, 4546kb)

HWLDP-PP-488 - I and DJ Alexander (Strutt and Parker) (pdf, 7378kb)

The letter on behalf of the Reporters continues here

And the Council's response (web date 20 07 2011):

The following statement sets out The Highland Council’s (THC) interpretation of

the evidence pertinent to this issue. THC wishes to refer to the following

documents in this statement...The Reporters have sought greater clarity from THC as to whether (and if so which parts of) the old local plans within Highland will be superseded or retained when the Highland wide Local Development Plan (HwLDP) is constituted. There is no doubt or dispute that the Highland Structure Plan March 2001 will be superseded in its entirety.

THC sets out its response below (within that providing the three

particular items of further information sought by the Reporters) on the

assumptions that:

• there will no wholesale changes (for example deletions of whole policies) to the content of the HwLDP Proposed Plan draft

• that the supplementary guidance issued in connection with the HwLDP will be adopted and clear the Ministerial “veto” period without similar wholesale changes. following Examination, and;

Full HC response here

Planners 'unhelpful' say business body

E newsletter 'Planning' reports that the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has launched a 'blistering' attack on planners. The article states:

In a report based on a survey of its members, it blasted planning officers as "unhelpful", "anti-growth" and having "little understanding of and regard for the needs of small businesses".

It added that the vast majority of its members who had used the planning system found it to be "utterly impenetrable".

The report said: "This complexity, cost and the unhelpful culture of planning officers create a disincentive to submit even a minor planning application."

More here and here

Examiners must be hard at work

Been regularly checking the THC web pages for updates on Examinations but nothing 'new' as yet.

General details on development plan examinations here

Open Space in New Residential Developments

Thanks to contact for info on this one:

The Highland Council have been working with Kit Campbell Associates to produce Supplementary Guidance on Open Space in New Residential Developments. The document will be used to provide guidance on both the design and provision of greenspace, sport and recreation facilities throughout the Highlands.

Full details here

Planning Permission in Principle - note 1

Extract

On 3rd August 2009 outline planning permission was replaced by ‘applications for planning permission in principle’. The purpose of such an application is to establish whether the principle of developing a piece of land is acceptable without preparing detailed plans.

Planning permission in principle alone does not give you a right to go ahead with the proposal as conditions will be attached setting out what further details require to be approved by way of a further application before work can start - approval of matters specified in conditions.

If the proposal is sensitive it is possible that details will be required before a decision is reached.

Source here and see also Circular 4 2009 here

Out-of town development; why no stats?

The daily E Planning newsletter reports that the (presumably English):

‘…Government is proposing to stop collecting its own data on the proportion of retail development taking place in town centres.’

The Item continues:

The move comes despite the abolition in 2009 by the Labour Government of the need test, which required developers to show need for proposed edge-of-town or out-of-town stores.

The abolition came despite warnings from the RTPI that it could accelerate the decline of the high street, and surveys that showed that twice as many senior local authority planning officers thought that it would undermine town centres than that it would not.

The Conservatives, then in opposition, said that if elected, they would reinstate the test.

The Department of Communities and Local Government pledged in 2008, in response to a select committee report, that it would publish data on the proportion of retail development that is located in town centres every year.

The committee had said that the Government needed to improve its collection and publication of statistics on town centres to ensure adequate monitoring of the results of the need test abolition.

However, in February last year a DCLG consultation document proposed releasing the data only biannually. A summary of responses to the consultation, published in October, said no decision had been made on the proposal.

But a wider DCLG consultation, launched in April this year, on departmental data-gathering proposes ending the collection of statistics on the extent of retail development taking place in town centres due to the "high cost of purchase and analysis" of the data.

The document suggests that, given the necessary resources, data could be procured from private companies offering monitoring services.

Planning journalists came across the latest proposal as they researched an article, which appears in the current issue of the magazine, exploring whether retail development was moving out of town.

Lobby group the British Council of Shopping Centres said it was concerned by the news. "More frequent and localised data on where development is taking place is essential if government is to monitor the impacts of policies and respond effectively," said executive director Edward Cooke.

Just off to check if they collect data in Scotland

(The article by Richard Garlick, Adam Branson and Susanna Gillman Thursday, 14 July 2011 can be found here)

Scottish Planning Series Circular 4 2009: Development Management Procedures

Extract

The planning system operates in the long term public interest. It does not exist to protect the interests of one person or business against the activities of another. In distinguishing between public and private interests, the basic question is whether the proposal would unacceptably affect the amenity and existing use of land and buildings which ought to be protected in the public interest, not whether owners or occupiers of neighbouring or other existing properties would experience financial or other loss from a particular development.

Full document here

Out of Town Retail; The Way Forward?

A survey of Sept 2008 apparently suggested (not a paid subscriber so cannot get access) that out-of town retail would be more successful than town centres in terms of instigating retail resurgence. This assertion is given some credence, perhaps, through the tone of a more recent item from June 2011 which talks of vacant shops triggering 'terminal' town decline,

The Inverness Courier however has news that 5 stores are to open in the 'Eastgate' in Inverness Town Centre, more here, and in the same paper a relatively recent item covered the proposals for six new restaurants etc at the out-of-town Inverness Retail Park

So could the wider Inverness / A96 corridor area be the exception? Could 'blanket' retail development - Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Co-op, Lidl, Aldi, Morrisons, Town Centre and 'Out-of Town' all work together to help us spend our way out of this recession?