Local Council planning decisions overturned by Planning Reporter each year: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/03802  
Date received: 28 December 2018  
Date responded: 4 January 2019

 

 

Under the current Planning system the Planning reporter overturns decisions made by local Planning Councils. Could you please tell me how many decisions they have over turned throughout Scotland each year for the past 5 years.

 

 

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

 

As per your request, the number of decisions that have been overturned throughout Scotland each year for the past 5 years are:
2014 – 140
2015 – 139
2016 – 152
2017 – 99
2018 – 115

 

These figures account for appeals where the DPEA have overturned (or partially overturned) the planning authority’s decision to refuse consent. The appeal types included in these figures are:
 Certificate of appropriate alternative development
 Advertisement consent
 Conservation area consent
 Certificate of lawful use and development
 Listed building consent
 Prior approval
 Planning obligation
 Planning permission (including permission in principle)
 Tree works consent

 

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses