NPF4 planning guidance: policy 2 - climate mitigation and adaptation

3. A plan-led system

3.1 Local Development Plans (LDPs)

3.1.1 Scotland’s plan-led system includes the requirement to manage the development and use of land in the long-term public interest. This includes contributing to sustainable development, with LDPs setting out how places will change in the future, including where development should and shouldn’t happen.

3.1.2 NPF4 policy 1 sets out that:

‘LDPs must address the global climate emergency and nature crisis by ensuring the spatial strategy will reduce emissions and adapt to current and future risks of climate change by promoting nature recovery and restoration in the area.’

3.1.3 LDPs have a strategic role in locating and shaping developments in a way that can support emissions reductions and help improve the climate resilience of our places through adaptation.

3.1.4 NPF4 Policy 2 sets out that:

‘…..the LDP spatial strategy should be designed to reduce, minimise or avoid greenhouse gas emissions. The six spatial principles should form the basis of the spatial strategy, helping to guide development to, and create, sustainable locations. The LDP strategy should also be informed by an understanding of the impacts of the proposals on greenhouse gas emissions. LDPs should support adaptation to the current and future impacts of climate change by taking into account climate risks, guiding development away from vulnerable areas, and enabling places to adapt to those risks.’

3.1.5 The role of LDPs includes coordinating climate measures most relevant to the plan area. It will be important that plans identify and support delivery of solutions that tackle both climate mitigation and adaptation and help deliver multiple benefits for communities and nature. Taking a place-based approach is central to realising these benefits. This approach can help secure climate mitigation outcomes, help avoid non-adapted and mal-adapted development, and can help create places that are flexible and suitable for future adaptations. In line with the Place Principle, a place-based approach will also help ensure plans are prepared in collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders, and are based on the most relevant and robust evidence.

3.2 Evidence to inform plan preparation

3.2.1 The Local Development Planning Guidance summarises the legislative requirements relevant to LDP preparation, and signposts to sources of information including on climate.

3.2.2 The following additional information sources on climate and guidance on approaches may also be helpful to plan preparation:

3.2.3 Mitigation: where available, information and data on emission sources and removals within a local authority boundary can be gathered to enable the identification of mitigation opportunities by the authority and stakeholders.

Example information sources include the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service^[4] (SCIS). SCIS works with all of Scotland’s local authorities, and is supporting an area-wide approach to emissions reduction that is currently in development and which considers GHG emissions across a geographic area.

SEA should be closely aligned with, and influence, the LDP preparation, see SEA section below for more information.

3.2.4 Adaptation: Our climate is changing and decision-makers will need to consider the possible implications of these changes for existing and future development. The approach to adaptation includes gathering information from existing, expert sources (references and examples are set out in Section 7) on:

• the baseline or observed climate;
• the future climate and how it may change over time; and
• the climate risks and impacts.

Gathering information on the extent of climate impacts on a region or local area, both now and how this may change into the future can:

• ensure today’s development will continue to work well as the climate changes;
• enable the identification of adaptation measures and solutions that are applicable to a development plan area; and
• help ensure development contributes to the wider climate resilience of our places.

3.2.5 The baseline: At a national level, observations of current climate change in Scotland can be found at The Met Office’s Local Authority Climate Service (LACS). LACS provides free and accessible reports on observed and projected climate trends for all local authority areas in Scotland. Example observed changes include Scotland’s 10 warmest years on record having all occurred since 1997, increases in rainfall and accelerating rates of sea level rise.

3.2.6 The future climate: Scotland’s climate is changing, with increasing rainfall, extreme weather events and higher average temperatures that will intensify in the coming years. Analysis of how different future climate change scenarios could impact existing and new development is needed to help assess risks. To support future-proofed plans and strategic decision making SNAP3 (Scottish National Adaptation Plan 2024-29)^[5] made a commitment to develop a practical ‘climate scenario decision tool’ for operational use by public bodies. Reference to this ongoing work and available resources that support consideration of future climate scenarios, such as those related to flood risk, are set out in Section 7 - Annex.

3.2.7 The climate risks and impacts: risks arising from the following changes are expected to affect buildings, infrastructure, natural environment and communities/ places. Impacts will not be experienced equally and communities who already face disadvantage will be particularly affected. It is important that these risks inform plan preparation and project delivery:

• more extreme/ intense rainfall alongside periods of no rainfall leading to increased flooding, the need to manage drainage and water scarcity
• storms and sea level rise leading to increasing erosion
• accelerating sea level rise leading to inundation at the coast, and
• periods of hot weather leading to overheating in buildings and associated health risks for people.

The UK-wide Climate Change Risk Assessment process also identifies climate change risks to (and some opportunities for):

• facilities delivering public services, including health and social care
• transport systems, including road, rail, aviation, shipping and others.
• electricity generation, transmission and distribution assets
• water supply and wastewater systems
• waste management systems
• indoor environmental quality
• cultural heritage and landscapes
• terrestrial, coastal, and freshwater ecosystems
• soil and natural carbon stores
• agriculture, fisheries, aquaculture and forestry
• fuel supply systems
• digital and communications systems

Section 7 Annex includes relevant materials and examples of how risks and impacts have been identified.

3.3 Strategic Environmental Assessment

3.3.1 The Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005 requires those preparing qualifying plans, including LDPs, to undertake an assessment of the likely significant effects of the plan, both positive and negative, on the environment, including on climatic factors. SEA can significantly benefit the preparation of an LDP, supporting better understanding of its environmental context and helping to identify steps to avoid, mitigate or reduce significant adverse effects, and enhance positive effects, including for climate. The benefits of embedding SEA into the LDP preparation process are therefore particularly relevant in addressing both the climate mitigation and adaptation needs of a local area, and the SEA should include consideration of the impacts of the plan on GHG emissions. Where new development proposals come forward aligned to the development plan, the findings of the SEA can also help inform further consideration of both mitigation and adaptation measures at project-level.

3.3.2 To minimise duplication and to ensure that the SEA adds value to the plan preparation process, the Evidence Report should be closely aligned with work undertaken to prepare the SEA scoping report. SEA can improve an LDP’s environmental performance from an early stage, including by identifying reasonable alternatives and assessing the impact these may have for climate mitigation and adaptation. The SEA scoping is likely to be a source of relevant evidence for many of the policy areas for the Evidence Report.

3.3.3 A relevant resource is the ClimateXChange review^[6] of GHG emissions in both SEA and EIA processes. This research offers insight into the approaches taken for gathering and recording emissions and makes observations on their effectiveness.

3.4 Plan preparation

3.4.1 Place briefs/ masterplan consent areas: The place-based approach to LDP preparation should reflect and respond to different spatial sensitivities and vulnerabilities and should address strategic land use tensions.

LDPs may identify where more detailed design guidance is expected, for example, by way of design frameworks, briefs, masterplans, masterplan consent areas (MCAs) and design codes. Specific climate mitigation and adaptation needs of a site and the surrounding area may be outlined through detailed design guidance to aid project level design.

MCAs are an important addition to the planning and placemaking toolkit, as a way for authorities to proactively shape and facilitate the type of development they want to happen in their areas and they can support a plan-led approach.

3.4.2 Mitigation: The Local Development Planning Guidance on climate mitigation policy encourages a whole-systems or area wide approach to emissions management. A practical example is the potential to locate new homes in sustainable places, close to low carbon transport networks so that modal shift is encouraged.

3.4.3 Adaptation: A holistic approach to identifying adaptation measures can help deliver multiple benefits for both people and nature, which support more resilient places. In practice, this can mean integrating blue and green spaces into development proposals that provide multiple benefits for adaptation to climate change (e.g. functional drainage capacity), biodiversity and people.

The LDP can identify areas where development is unlikely to be supported due to the predicted effects of climate change, factoring in the need for flexibility to allow for uncertainty in predictions. Conversely, this may help to support the reasoning for identifying areas where development is to be encouraged. Scotland’s National Flood Resilience^[7] strategy identifies flooding as Scotland’s biggest climate adaptation challenge, and on flood risk NPF4 makes clear that:

‘LDPs should strengthen community resilience to the current and future impacts of climate change, by avoiding development in areas at flood risk as a first principle.… planning for adaptation measures; and identifying opportunities to implement improvements to the water environment through natural flood risk management and blue green infrastructure.’