5 December is when the legal powers for creating masterplan consent areas go live. Is this an early Christmas present for housebuilders and other developers?

Legal powers

  • Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, section 54A-F and schedule 5A - either in force or come into force on 5 December (not shown yet on the official legislation website, but are contained in section 15 of the 2019 Act) 

Advantages of MCAs

My previous blog discusses MCAs in more detail. The main advantage is streamlining consenting, by giving in advance several types of consent, including planning permission, roads construction consent, listed building consent and conservation area consent.

The certainty provided by the advance consenting can make a site/ area more attractive to developers/ funders/ operators, because it removes consent risk/ delay.

There are also no restrictions on the types of development that can be authorised by an MCA. Examples mentioned by the Scottish Government include green freeports and development to support the Scotwind offshore wind projects. The Ministers required modification to the Inner Moray Firth LDP2 to include housing in consideration for MCAs.

Although planning permission can be granted contrary to the provisions of the development plan, the power to create an MCA scheme may be more flexible, because the statutory provisions on MCAs do not require a plan-led approach, ie. in considering whether to promote an MCA scheme there is no requirement to act in accordance with the provisions of the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise.

Disadvantages

For a landowner/ developer, the disadvantage is the need to persuade the planning authority to promote the MCA.

Procedure

Although something new and untested has risks, the MCA procedures are similar to applications for planning permission and the other consents within the MCA umbrella.

In common with those consents, there is no third party right of appeal against an MCA scheme. Unlike CPOs and other statutory orders, there is no requirement for confirmation by the Scottish Ministers if there are objections to the scheme, although Ministers do have call-in powers.

Scottish Government support

The recent Chief Planner letter states the Scottish Government will:

"support early adopters of Masterplan Consent Areas to frontload consents and support investment, including where they will help to deliver national developments, Green Freeports, housing and green data centres."

Conclusion

MCAs are not a "just what I always wanted" sort of a Christmas present, except perhaps for a few specific circumstances. It will be interesting to see whether they are put to good use, or end up left in the cupboard. It might be a good sign that 17 planning authorities responded to the recent Scottish Government consultation.

Contributor

Neil Collar

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