Publications declutter: saying goodbye to outdated planning advice in Scotland

The Planning and Architecture Division of the Scottish Government announced on Monday 8 December that it has carried out a ‘publications declutter’, removing all dated national planning advice from the Scottish planning system and withdrawing over one thousand pages of guidance.

This reorganisation follows the commitment made in the 2025 Programme for Government to “declutter the system” in order to boost planning capacity and reduce barriers to delivery. The Division consulted on a list of guidance and advice pieces which it was proposing to withdraw and sought feedback on the suggested removals.

Some consultees expressed a desire for some of the guidance to either be updated or retained as opposed to being removed completely, but the Division advised that the guidance is “not intended to remain in place in perpetuity” and that given the passage of time since publication of most of the relevant guidance, much of the detail is now established practice within the planning community..The documents now marked as ‘withdrawn’ on the Scottish Government’s website following the consultation include 27 Planning Advice Notes (also known as PANs) and 19 pieces of guidance, representing 71% of the previously available material on a wide range of planning matters. Some of the withdrawn PANs include advice on improving town centres, rural diversification and water and drainage. Other planning guidance which has been withdrawn includes advice on onshore wind turbines, flood risk and planning and waste management. A full list of the withdrawn guidance is available on the Scottish Government’s website .

In their update of 8 December, the Planning and Architecture Division has committed to the continuation of producing new guidance, but with an intention to focus on certain areas where particular attention is needed. For example, priority will be given where there is heightened demand or where required by the Division’s delivery priorities.

In the meantime, National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) provides a comprehensive set of national planning policies and the upcoming NPF4 Delivery Programme update is due to provide further detail on those policies.