Planning, Infrastructure and Place Advisory Group minutes: May 2025

Attendees and apologies

Joint chairs

• Daniel Hinze, Scottish Government
• Tony Rose, Scottish Futures Trust

Core group

• Richard Ballantyne, British Ports
• Susan Campbell, Scottish National Investment Bank
• David Cowan, Scottish Government
• Soren Jensen, Infrastructure Transparency
• Martin McKay, Clyde Gateway
• Rachel Skinner, WSP
• Pauline Smith, Development Trust Association Scotland
• Sara Thiam, Prosper
• Hamish Trench, Scottish Land Commission
• John Trower, Optiminity
• Iain Docherty, Stirling University
• Ailsa Raeburn, Community Land Scotland
• Nick Halfhide, Nature Scot
• Fiona Simpson, Scottish Government
• Jane Wood, Homes for Scotland

Support

• Lorna Aird, Scottish Government
• Greg Walker, Scottish Government

Apologies

• Pam Ewen, Head of Planning Scotland
• John Hamilton, Winchburgh Developments Ltd

Items and actions

Introduction and apologies

Fiona Simpson welcomed everyone to the first meeting of 2025 and handed over to Daniel Hinze who would be the new co-chair given the change in focus for the group.

Daniel introduced the first agenda item asking Greg Walker from the Scottish Government Infrastructure Division to give a brief overview.  

Infrastructure investment plan and place

Daniel Hinze/Fiona Simpson presented slides outlining some initial thinking on a place-based approach to the next Infrastructure Investment Plan (IIP). They invited comments/thoughts from the group. Summarised below:

• IIP should connect with other strategies such as National Planning Framework 4(NPF4)/Housing/Industrial Strategy.  This applies to UK Government (UKG) and Scottish Government (SG) policy. It should create a clear vision and look to maximise investment (public investment to lever in/enable private investment)
• community leadership is essential in a place-based model. We should look to unlock community infrastructure and ‘citizen’ investment
• the IIP needs a place-based approach and should be an articulation of delivery
• IIP could be seen as an extension of delivery for NPF4 regional plans. It could also set out National priorities as some will be common across all regions i.e. housing
• the proposed “themes” seem too public sector focused and don’t ‘speak’ to the private sector (housing, energy, telecoms)
• Tony clarified that the IIP has previously dealt with solely publicly funded infrastructure investment and the Needs Assessment will look more at public and private infrastructure
• application of Place Principle requires local actors to deliver and will not be applicable to everything in IIP and the focus could be on making a difference and not using Place Principle as a blanket policy
• investment allocation across geographies is difficult and will require good governance
• the IIP is about creating certainty about what the public sector will invest in to provide security to market. To do that better investments should be bundled into proper regional strategies and interdependencies across sectors taken into account. IIP should deliver regionally; Glasgow region is ahead in this. UK strategies are not thinking about Scotland and cross border infrastructure/ interdependencies, and they should be; therefore, should the IIP bridge that gap?
• the investment criteria we use needs to be flexible and multi-year funding needs to be provided and we also need to be clear on the data and evidence we will be collecting
• discussion around the IIP to promote economic and social cohesion and support marginal communities
• the new themes risk downplaying the importance of other things – i.e. are we saying growth/decarbonisation is not important anymore
• we need to make sure what is put in place is working and evidence that our investments are making a difference
• IIP should link to UK Infrastructure Strategy and SG strategies.
• IIP should give a line of sight to the regional level
• in terms of the priorities identified, too much emphasis on public services, and there is a big leap from the current three priorities and the new ones; no mention of economy as a priority, whereas infrastructure is generally seen as a key driver for that
• how do we know the IIP is working; what is the reporting “dashboard” that demonstrate it is making a difference
• too much emphasis on Place can be seen as a blocker i.e. it requires investment, staff, planning etc. If we are considering through a natural infrastructure lens – catchments would be the appropriate geography but there are challenges around defining what is an appropriate geography

Tony brought the discussion to a close and asked Daniel and Fiona to reflect on comments:

Daniel thanked everyone for their contributions reflecting on prioritisation and the proposed themes. He mentioned that these were early ideas and would be given more thought but in the current IIP they were simply used to categorize investments. We could look more at an outcome based IIP but, in practice, more thought was needed on how we could do that.

Fiona thanked the group and acknowledged the value of the group’s contributions which provide lots to reflect on.

Forward plan

Daniel introduced the suggested topics for the group to discuss through 2025 with proposed meetings in August and December.

Tony mentioned that the aim was to create feedback loops with the group providing input and reflection on the issues within the forward plan. The group were content with the suggested plan and way of working.

Needs Assessment

Tony provided a brief verbal update on development of a National Needs Assessment.

The Needs Assessment will inform the next IIP and there will be an opportunity to discuss at future meetings.

Any other business and closing remarks

Daniel brought the meeting to a close.

He informed the group that there would be other opportunities to feed in ideas/thoughts and any other comments would be welcome.