National Planning Hub update: Chief Planner letter – May 2025
An update on the National Planning Hub from the Chief Planner.
Part of
National Planning Hub
The Scottish Government recognises the critical role our planning system and planning authorities have at the heart of economic growth and our shared priorities to deliver positive change across Scotland.
Following the publication of the Programme for Government 2025-2026 on Tuesday 6 May 2025, I am writing to provide some further operational detail on the support which is now available to you from National Planning Hub hosted in and led by Scottish Government in partnership with the Improvement Service.
Building on the Verity House Agreement we want to continue to deepen the partnership with you on our shared priorities and continue our collective efforts on improving the performance of planning system and realising its full potential as a contributor to the economy.
Ministers see the Hub as pivotal to providing practical help to planning authorities make decisions, particularly on hydrogen and onshore wind applications and in support of delivering more good quality homes, as soon as possible, as part of the response to the housing emergency. We are aiming to do that by offering brokerage support for example through our ongoing work on stalled sites; providing access to specialist expertise; facilitating sharing of expertise and supporting good practice.
We have been working closely with the National Planning Improvement Champion at the Improvement Service and Heads of Planning Scotland Executive Committee on the operational delivery of the Hub for 2025/26.
Support now available
Whilst our approach to the Hub will continue to develop through collaboration over the coming year, we recognise the existing pressures on the system and challenges around performance, and we are therefore seeking to provide direct support at the earliest opportunity.
Our emphasis is on combining this short term practical and direct help with longer term learning and initiatives, building on the ongoing improvement work of the National Planning Improvement Champion at the Improvement Service.
Recent examples of the Hub’s support included supporting a Local Authority with the provision and funding of expertise to assess a specialist technical report on hydrogen. That assessment was subsequently used to progress a planning application and its consenting. We also provided funding to enable sharing of resources within and shared across local authorities. We are currently working with a range of stakeholders and an environmental consultancy to create specialist guidance for battery energy storage systems. Other proposals and ideas are encouraged, to ensure the support can be tailored to your authority’s needs.
Please note, the Hub’s support is available on a temporary basis only, to provide additional surge capacity and resource to help you to respond to current challenges, and to enable you to work with your teams to accelerate your activities this financial year. Any support provided will be required to demonstrate additionality and impact to supplement the existing service. The funding and capacity should not be used to offset or reduce the current resourcing of the system.
So that we can now progress at pace with distributing support, I would now like to invite you to let us know how the Hub can help your planning authority to meet its specific pressures and needs. We are very open to new and creative ideas for making use of the resourcing available.
Next steps
Please revert to us by 31 May 2025 with your proposals, including specific tasks. Please e-mail the Director for Planning, Architecture and Regeneration mailbox on DirectorPAR@gov.scot with your responses.
All proposals will be assessed and prioritised, to ensure they add value to the service and will have a positive impact on development and the economy. We aim to distribute support as soon as possible thereafter.
We will be providing more detail and updates on the National Planning Hub as it develops. We will also use existing mechanisms to work with yourselves, COSLA, SOLACE, Heads of Planning Scotland, the Improvement Service and other key stakeholders to ensure that the learning and benefits of the National Planning Hub approach are more widely shared.
I hope this is a useful update and that we can work together to make good use of the very practical investment which Ministers are making in the planning system. If we can demonstrate that it can make a difference by overcoming resourcing gaps, I am optimistic that we will be well placed to make good case for securing further support to help better resource the planning system in the years to come.
If you would like to discuss this further, please contact Barry Stalker - Head of the National Planning Hub (barry.stalker@gov.scot).
Yours faithfully
Fiona Simpson
Chief Planner
Contact
Email: DirectorPAR@gov.scot