SMITH LEADS HOLYROOD PLANNING ENFORCEMENT DEBATE

8.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 4th Sep 2008

North East Fife MSP, Iain Smith this evening led a private members debate in The Scottish Parliament calling for tougher planning law enforcement.

Mr Smith sought this debate to highlight what he considers to be a serious weakness in planning law, which can undermine public confidence in the planning process.

Iain Smith said, "Unauthorised developments and breaches of planning conditions are not uncommon occurrences. But they can cause considerable anxiety and frustration to neighbours and communities, not least because of the apparent inability of the planning authorities to take effective action to prevent or stop the planning breach. This can lead to the impression that those responsible for the unauthorised development are "getting away with it".

Mr Smith highlighted some recent examples from his constituency, such as last autumn when a number of constituents contacted him regarding the unauthorised use of land at Fordelhill Farm near Wormit when even before submitting a planning application work had commenced to develop the site as a permanent site for travelling people's caravans. Indeed in the week following submission of the application the site was already occupied by 4-6 caravans."

He stressed that this specific issue was not about this site being developed for travelling people, but about it being developed without planning consent.

He said, "I contacted Fife Council, the planning authority, to find out what was happening and was advised that the Council was "continuing its efforts to ensure that development does not take place in advance of the planning authority giving consideration to the planning application."

"The Planning Authority has number possible routes to try to prevent unauthorised development. The main ones are enforcement and stop notices. However these have drawbacks, which made them unsuitable in this case, where the need was for some quickly enforceable measure to prevent further development of the site."

"To provide a real disincentive, it should be made clear that if you go ahead with a development without approval, then it is likely that approval will be refused. A presumption against development would be an extra hurdle that an applicant would have to jump before approval could be given. It would be for the applicant to show that there is good reason why they undertook development before receiving planning consent."

"Going ahead with a development for no good reason should not be allowed in the interests of fairness and justice to the whole community."

ENDS