Planning and Environmental Appeals Stakeholder Forum minutes: June 2025

Attendees and apologies

DPEA attendees

• Scott Ferrie, Deputy Director, Chief Reporter Planning and Environmental Appeals
• Martyn Connolly, Head of Delivery
• Allison Coard, Assistant Chief Reporter
• David Liddell , Assistant Chief Reporter
• Trudi Craggs , Assistant Chief Reporter
• Sonya Thomas, Business Support Officer

Stakeholders attendees

• Adele Shaw, Historic Environment Scotland
• Aileen Jackson, Scotland Against Spin
• Alan Farquhar, Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
• Amy Howard, Wright Johnstone Mackenzie
• Bernard Whittle, Heads of Planning
• Bruce Walker, Homes for Scotland
• David Law, NatureScot
• Esme Clelland, Scottish Environment Link
• Helen Todd, Planning Democracy
• Jenny Munro, Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland (RTPI)
• John Esslemount, Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland (APRS)
• Maurice O’Carroll, Scottish Planning, Local Government and Environmental Law Bar Group
• Megan Amundson, Scottish Renewables
• Rachel Connor, Scotland Against Spin
• Suzanne McIntosh, Sir Frank Mears Associates and Association of Mediators

Apologies

• Joe Dagen, Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland

Items and actions

Welcome

Scott Ferrie welcomes everyone and introduces Martyn Connolly (Head of Delivery) and Trudi Craggs (Assistant Chief Reporter). 
Informs the group that David Henderson and Karen Haywood have retired.

Minutes of last meeting and matters arising

Rachel Connor asked for clarification on who ‘BW’ was.
This has been amended within the November 2024 Stakeholder Forum minutes.

DPEA update and resourcing

Scott Ferrie - DPEA entered into the year with 210 cases in hand, there are currently 528 live cases. In 2024/25 there were 552 short stay accommodation appeals and DPEA is anticipating the same for 2025/26. There are currently 10 section 36 cases being handled by DPEA. There are currently 3 Gatechecks ongoing.

DPEA has about 240 appeals relating to CAR licences for marine salmon farms. There will be a business meeting in July with SEPA and the appellant to identify an efficient way of managing these appeals.
DPEA is expecting around 600 wayleave cases, and three major section 37 applications for priority transmission infrastructure are expected to be submitted to ministers over the summer. 

DPEA is expecting to reach 1000 live cases over the summer months. DPEA is committed to a high level of service however we expect performance against targets will dip as a result of the volume of cases.
Megan Amundson asks what the role of DPEA is in wayleave cases.  

Scott Ferrie – Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) have been trying to reach agreements with landowners and tenants. Where that hasn't been possible, if SSEN serve a necessary wayleave it has been agreed with Energy Consents Unit that high priority wayleave applications will go straight to DPEA. DPEA will consider the necessary wayleaves and report to ministers on those, and at that stage the cases would go back to Energy Consents.

Planning appeal fees will go live on the 9th of June 2025. DPEA gave evidence at the local government housing and planning committee concerning appeal fees in parliament and no objections were raised by the committee.

Recruitment is underway for a total of 11 posts over the whole of DPEA. There are 4 new reporter posts and 3 backfill reporter posts being recruited for. The new reporters are expected to join in November 2025.

Megan Amundson askes how planning appeals fee amounts are determined. 

Scott Ferrie - Draft regulations are currently in parliament and are available online, in general terms fees will be calculated in the same way that planning application fees are calculated. They will be following the same categories and methodologies. An appeal fee has been set at 40% of the planning application fee. There are some exemptions – for example no appeal fee will apply where the appeal is on the grounds of non-determination.

Bruce Walker links the regulations -  The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025

Bruce Walker asks if the appeal fees will be ringfenced for DPEA use. 

Scott Ferrie confirms that they will be ringfenced.

Bruce Walker asks if DPEA would have to decide if the planning authority had acted unreasonably and make an award of expenses for an appellant to get the administrative fee back.

Scott Ferrie – Yes, the appeal fees would be included in the overall expenses awarded to the appellant if the reporter finds that the planning authority has acted unreasonably. 

Bruce Walker – If one of our members appealed in a case where the application was refused against officer recommendation for approval, but the reporter didn't feel that the planning authority had acted unreasonably, the appeal fee would not be returned, even at the highest level of fee. Scott Ferrie confirms that is correct. 

End-year stats

Martyn Connolly - The annual review is currently in draft and will be published soon.

Another record year in 2024/25 in terms of number of cases. At the start of the year there were 202 cases on hand, and in total for 2024/25 there were 1002 cases determined. 911 of these cases had a decision, 46 went to ministers, and 37 were withdrawn. This left 210 to carry over to 2025/26. The percentage of planning appeals allowed dropped to 49% from 52%. In terms of DPEA’s performance against targets in 2024/25, written submissions have a target of 12 weeks and DPEA averaged 11.6 weeks. Further written submissions have a target of 20 weeks and DPEA has an average of 23.3 weeks. Hearings have a target of 40 weeks and DPEA averaged 41.1. 

Electricity Act casework

David Liddell – as noted earlier, three major section 37 applications are expected this summer. Ministers have signed up to the ambition of determining cases within a year of the application date. These cases have typically taken 3 to 4 years to determine in the past.  

Trudi Craggs – Wayleaves for section 36 and other accelerated electricity projects are coming through for both overhead and underground cables. There are 54 currently and no committed timescale for them. DPEA are encouraging upfront participation.  Typically, SSEN would have submitted an application to the landowner asking for the wayleave. They have 21 days to respond and agree, if they don’t it goes to DPEA. To protect reporter resources a reporter will not be appointed until week 14 as caseworkers will do the upfront work. Parties will have to submit their documentation by week 8. They will be informed that reporters will not be assigned until week 14. 

DPEA expect to receive various compulsory purchase orders over the summer. Unclear on who or how many objections will be at present.  

David Liddell – There was a question surrounding the proposed changes to the Electricity Act 1989 and how reporters make their decisions. The intended practice will be similar to Guidance Note 8 on further procedures. It sets out the circumstances on whether or not reporters need to have further written submissions, a hearing or a public inquiry. It is based on what evidence the reporter needs in order to make a recommendation or decision. The Bill (as it currently is) will require parties have the chance to submit their views on what procedures are applied.
Guidance Note 8

Esme Clelland shares concerns about making sure people’s voices are still heard and how it is difficult for people to know it if they can take part until they know what the process will be.

Scott Ferrie – Currently people can opt-in and reserve their position and decide later if they want to take part. The bill would change the process slightly - in the current draft opting-in may come later in the process. Potentially all objectors and parties involved would need to be invited to a PEM and then opt out following the PEM. The concern is that many people invited may not be interested in the PEM.

Aileen Jackson asks if there will be a drop in inquiries or procedures.

David Liddell – This is a UK government consultation however we think that all the Bill does is regulate current procedures in law. The ultimate question that a reporter should be asking themselves is what evidence do I need, and what's the best way of getting it? We've in the past tended, for example, to have public inquiry sessions for landscape and visual effects, and I think it's at least arguable, have we done that too often. In some cases a hearing may have been suitable. The decision on what procedures to follow will be based on the best way to gather evidence perspective, and not from a cost-cutting perspective.

Rachel Connor has a question  - will reporters increased workload will make them feel pressure to not hold inquiries? She also expresses concern that during PEMs it is the view of a local authority and the applicant that are taken into consideration, and the public are sidelined.

Rachel Connor also expresses concern that in the draft guidance note it indicates that Scottish Ministers may decide that an inquiry or other procedure is not necessary by virtue of mitigating or satisfying the concerns of a local authority by imposing planning conditions. However, planning conditions are often not enforced, and the public have no confidence in planning conditions if they aren’t going to be enforced.

David Liddell - there must be a public inquiry, unless the objection from the planning authority can be resolved by an appropriately worded condition. This is not new  - it is part of the Act currently. In regard to the increased workload question, reporters will decide based on what evidence they need and how best to gather that. More reporters are joining and there will be no pressure from above to not have a public inquiry. 

Maurice O’Carroll – Previously there had to be a public inquiry at the behest of the refused developer, so consequently the public inquiries in relation to housing construction, claims for a certificate of lawful use and development, and many other general areas covered by the planning system. As a result of reforms, the automatic right of public inquiry was removed by legislation, and the number of public inquiries that followed, apart from wind farms, reduced to more or less zero. I think that it is valued by members of the public more than anything else to be heard out loud and not heard in writing.

David Liddell – There is case law relating to the procedures which have been adopted in several appeal/application processes in the UK. As we understand the law, decisions on the procedures to be adopted are at the reporter’s discretion, but the choice of procedure still has to be rational, fair and appropriate. You have to choose the correct procedures that are designed to get to the bottom of the evidence. There is no intention for that to change. 

Question from Alieen Jackson surrounding submitting photomontages for cases such as an appeal or a section 36. 3D visualisations should be required.

David Liddell - We are involved in cases towards the end of the process when the application documentation has been submitted. These matters are generally speaking for the consenting authorities such as the planning authorities or energy consents. 

Presently, NatureScot has its own standards for photomontages. There's also the Guidance for Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment prepared by the landscape architects’ professional institute. Reporters use these standards to assess the adequacy of environmental information.

Aileen Jackson - Wirelines are very primitive; from a residential amenity point of view everyone should be getting a photo montage of a wind farm from their own property. Some developers do, and some don’t. 

David Liddell - We can’t insist upon this as standard. You'd have to speak to the planning and architecture division for planning cases or energy consents in relation to the cases that they run. 

David Liddell. In relation to statutory consultation in respect of fire risk, DPEA don't choose who are statutory consultees.

Esme Clelland - ECU have recently issued standard conditions for onshore wind development, and it would be useful to know how these relate to DPEA decision making. 

David Liddell - DPEA are aware they are working on these. We look for the planning authority and the applicant to agree conditions. Other parties can comment on those too. We'd expect them to be based on the standard conditions, and if there's a departure, we'd be wanting to know why departure was proposed. If there are disagreements, then we tend to try and resolve those through the inquiry process, sometimes that's a hearing, sometimes it's just written submissions.

Esme Clelland - I was just slightly confused by the energy consents position in terms of the biodiversity enhancement side of things, because there isn't a specific condition related to biodiversity enhancement. Suggests conditions can't be used to secure enhancement. There is confusion within the community benefit side, is the any discussion between DPEA and ECU?

David Liddell - That's something we can ask them next time we have a liaison meeting with them.

Rachel Connor - Reporters are able to ask for additional information so I'm not clear why you can't ask for clarification of viewpoints and wirelines in a new format or even increasing the format that is provided.

David Liddell - The reporter can decide for more information but would only ask if they thought it was essential.

Rachel Connor - You should be including in your evidence to make a decision the impact on residential amenity and if the information provided doesn't give you that then surely that should be something that you should ask for.

David Liddell - It would be up to the reporter to decide if the reporter needs it.

David Liddell - Having community hearings have proven useful. It would be good to formalise what the emerging practices look like so everyone's clear going forward that this is an option for a form of oral session.

Maurice O’Carroll - I strongly believe in oral presentation of concerns. I have read the draft guidance and the one thing that really raised an alarm bell for me is where it says if a community hearing is being considered, the reporter will listen carefully to views expressed. Sets out in advance the weight of the views.  

David Liddell - This is intended to mean that their views on what procedures will be adopted will carry considerable weight, not their views on the merits.

Maurice O’Carroll thanks David for clarifying.

Maurice O’Carroll - Facilitating parties speaking is absolutely to be commended. The point of concern is that when you get into procedures which exclude certain people and hear others in isolation, as a principle that is then always problematic.

David Liddell - The reason reporters are doing community hearings is partly to avoid (for people who may be put off by it) the formal, perhaps inquisitorial, confrontational approach of an inquiry.

Maurice O’Carroll leaves the meeting 

Rachel Connor - My concern is what legislative, or statutory importance will be attached to comments made at a community hearing as opposed to a formal public inquiry? What they need is not to be intimidated and bullied, and that has improved in the last few months with DPEA reporters.
In regard to hearing statements based on initial representation by any participant to a community hearing that doesn't allow for any updated information provided by the applicant. As we know, they very often amend their application. They amend their environmental statements. They might add new affected water supplies. People should have the right to be able to respond to amended environmental information right up to the point that a decision is made. There should be support to be able to participate effectively and on the equal terms, not pushing for community hearings.

David Liddell - It is not the intention that we would be preventing people from commenting on new information which may have been submitted.

Scott Ferrie - Part of the public inquiry can consist of written submissions, hearings, inquiry sessions. We want to make the inquiry experience more accessible, especially for the unrepresented.

David Liddell - If people prefer a formal inquiry instead of a community hearing that's something they can tell us about the pre-examination meeting.

Megan Amundson - We want to make sure that the Community sessions don't become automatic and therefore duplicative, so if community members have participated in the formal session on a particular topic, that they aren't then requesting a community session to cover the same territory.

Trudi Craggs - We are trying to make the process more accessible for everyone to take part in it, and that was the rationale behind the document management process. The whole point of this is for us to get the evidence for us to write a robust report to ministers, and that's the reason why we do this.

Trudi Craggs – draft Guidance Note 29. Once I got your comments, we did a consultation internally. I took on board a lot of comments when I thought there were improvements, or to help clarify things or make things clearer.

It has been finalised and will be uploaded as Guidance Note 29 

Amy Howard joined the meeting

Trudi Craggs - I will ask Martyn to send out a link to it once it's published, and to Guidance Note 23 so you've got it.

The reporters are starting to use the Guidance Note. We are happy to have feedback on how it’s working. Case officers are the ones who upload and tag the documents, so it is intended to help them as well. 
Amy Howard - Is there some guidance on the opportunity to add to the document list once we've seen other party’s evidence. The concern is that at the moment you put in a sort of all-encompassing list that includes documents that we don't necessarily refer to in evidence. If a point comes up from another party, we might want to address it, if something does come up that we haven't referred to it would be good to have the opportunity to lodge it once we've seen what the other parties are saying.

Trudi Craggs - Hearing statements and inquiry statements would be submitted at the same time as supporting documents would be submitted

It's upfront that it would include inquiry reports. You then have an opportunity to rebut anything in your precognition that was coming out the evidence if something came up that hadn't been submitted and it was clearly material to the case or there was a change of circumstance. That would be something you'd raise with the reporter, and there is Guidance Note 24 which gives more guidance but we're trying to get away from that trickle effect. If there's a good reason that evidence hasn't been submitted, we're not going to cut the evidence because it doesn't help us.

Amy Howard – If they refer to decisions in their evidence, and there's maybe another decision that might counter what's said. The applicant wouldn't include that decision because that's not a line of argument that they are making. Once they've seen the decisions have been put in by other parties and line of argument they're making, they might want to put that decision in a response. It was just really for clarity as to whether that would sort of come under the kind of exceptional circumstances that would allow a document at a late stage. 

Susan Mackintosh joined the meeting

Trudi Craggs - I can't see why you can’t update your document list should that situation arise. The reporters will take a reasonable approach.

David Law has concerns about how this will work in practice. One of the suggestions we made was whether it be possible, once the notes been introduced, to have a workshop with some stakeholders to discuss how it's going to work.

Trudi Craggs - We will conduct a workshop for stakeholders if that would be helpful to talk through the guidance note.

Gatecheck update

Allison Coard - There were 9 completed Gatecheck processes during 2024/25. Four of them were returned. Of that four, one (Glasgow) has subsequently being revised and come back through the gate and passed. The other three are currently being revised.

In addition to those, we have 3 current live Gatecheck processes going on which are Stirling, Perth and Kinross and Inverclyde.

Expecting 6 or 7 in July and 6 or 7 in Autumn.

Some are going to have to be revised and require reassessment.

Bruce Walker - Our estimate is that a third of planning authorities are going to fail to meet the May 2028 target date for the next local development plan, and any further slippage from a number of those is going to take it up to nearly half of the planning authorities not meeting the deadline.

Your Gatecheck process to date has taken around 3 months from receipt to issuing of the report. Keeping in mind the workload coming forward. Do you think you'll be able to continue with that sort of timeline, bearing in mind all the work that Scott's talked about at the beginning of the meeting.

Allison Coard - We're making our best endeavours to do so. Forward planning for this is quite difficult because we are dealing with authorities saying that they're going to come in, say in July and then it's slipping to October. Managing as best we can.

Scott Ferrie - The big numbers in terms of cases coming our way generally wouldn't be dealt with by reporters who are working on Gatechecks, so there might not be too much conflict.
The real tension might come where we have the high priority transmission lines, the  number of section 36 wind farms ticks up and the number of gate checks ticks up as well, because those three types of case would be dealt with by the same grade of reporters.

Jenny Munro - I'm just wondering if there are any trends that you're noticing in terms of the reasons that evidence reports are being returned or if there are common reasons that are shared by a lot of local authorities, or are the reasons quite varied between them?

Allison Coard - There are some and they do revolve around local housing land requirement and the evidence to support that, and also the evidence to support an infrastructure first approach. Both of these strands, which are not unrelated to each other, have been where we've seen a main cause for the return of Evidence Reports.

Agenda Items submitted by stakeholders

Addressed earlier in the meeting

Any other buisiness

None