The Scottish Government’s Programme for Government 2024/25, published on 4 September 2024, includes a commitment to: 'establish Scotland’s first Planning Hub, to build capacity and resilience, and to improve consistency and efficiency in decision-making'.

Context

Work has already begun to establish the first Planning Hub – the National Planning Improvement Hub (NPIH) to use its full title - and, once operational, the intention is that it will provide planning authorities with access to expertise, good practice and training opportunities required for staff development going forward. It is hoped that sharing skills and experience in this way will help those in planning services deal with applications quickly and effectively, though the NPIH will play no role in actually determining planning applications.

The NPIH will be run by the National Planning Improvement Team in the Improvement Service, whilst drawing on support from Scottish Government and other key agencies and partners including COSLA and Heads of Planning Scotland. The NPIH is being funded by the Scottish Government so that there will be no fees for planning authorities to be able to access its services.

Purpose

A key driver for the NPIH is Scotland's ambitious net zero targets and the recognition that achieving such targets is dependent on new investment and development that will need to be consented via the planning system.

The Programme for Government indicates that between September 2024 and March 2025 – its pilot phase - the Hub’s initial priority will be to help planning authorities make quicker decisions on hydrogen planning applications. Hydrogen has been identified as having significant potential to support progress towards Scotland’s net zero targets but there is limited expertise in and experience of dealing with such applications amongst planning authorities so that they would benefit from specialist input. 

It can be anticipated that there will be great demand for access to the services of NPIH. Aside from the emphasis on supporting applications for hydrogen developments initially, the Scottish Government has indicated only that the deployment of resources and expertise will be decided through analysis of planning authorities' and industry needs. 

If the initial pilot period proves to be successful, from March 2025 onwards, the Scottish Government's intention is for the remit of NPIH to be expanded to support a wider range of developments including the delivery of good quality homes and onshore wind.

Comment

On account of the well-documented resourcing pressures facing most if not all of Scotland's planning authorities, there is a great appetite and impetus across the industry for the Planning Hub to succeed.

While some of the finer details are still emerging, the initial scope of and brief for the NPIH is promising:

  • The pilot phase focusing on hydrogen applications is being funded by the Scottish Government separately from the planning budget allocated to local authorities, so that this new service should not come at the expense of existing ones.
  • The NPIH will also largely provide technical help and expertise rather than planning assistance. This should also help to alleviate concerns that its establishment will reduce an already small pool of planning staff working in local authorities.
  • Hydrogen applications are still relatively niche notwithstanding the potential renewable energy contribution offered by such developments. The fact that the NPIH is starting with a narrow focus will hopefully allow it to become established and then expanded to cover a broader range of developments, rather than being swamped by requests for input from the outset.
  • There is precedent for this model in the form of the Scottish Building Standards Hub, which launched on 3 September 2024 following a successful two-year pilot. Like the NPIH the Scottish Building Standards Hub delivers advice, training and a range of building standards systems to local authority building standards teams and stakeholders in the construction sector, though there is no direct relationship between the two hubs.

In the context of the current national and 12 local authorities' housing emergencies, though, the merits of focusing the Planning Hub's expertise solely on hydrogen applications for the next six months is questionable.

To the extent that there is any spare capacity within the NPIH, which may well be the case while hydrogen developments remain an emerging industry in Scotland, a more efficient model would be to have a second channel for the consideration of national and major housing applications during the pilot project. The impact of any teething problems would likely be outweighed if sites, especially those with technical constraints, could be 'unlocked' for consenting through NPIH's input.

This sentiment is echoed in the Chief Planner's most recent letter, issued on 20 September 2024, which emphasises the importance of 'identifying practical opportunities to improve the capacity and resources of the planning system.'

We await with interest to see the impact that the NPIH makes on planning applications for hydrogen developments and, hopefully, to a broader range of developments in the near future.

    Contributors

    Victoria Lane

    Senior Associate

    Elaine Farquharson-Black

    Partner