Climate change duties: statutory guidance for public bodies

Annex J: Sectoral guidance: Planning and the built environment

This annex contains information aimed at planning authorities. Other bodies with an interest in planning, development, community planning and place making may also find the content useful. It includes:

• climate, public bodies and the planning system
• the planning system
• place making and public bodies
• environmental Assessment and climate
• community Planning Partnerships.

Climate, public bodies and the planning system

Scotland’s planning system manages the development and use of land in the long term public interest. This includes ensuring our places change in a way that helps minimise emissions and are prepared for a changing climate.

Responsibility for delivery of Scotland’s planning system primarily lies with the 32 local authorities and the two national park authorities: Cairngorms, and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs.

Organisations including Scottish Water, Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), NatureScot, Transport Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland, Scottish Forestry and enterprise agencies also have certain duties to engage with the planning process.

Beyond these specific planning functions, as a whole, the public sector holds powers to influence and enable action on climate through engaging with development planning, development proposals and decisions around infrastructure investment.

The planning system

Scotland’s planning system is plan led, with the plan for any area comprising the National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), together with the local development plan (LDP) relevant to that area. The LDP is prepared by a Council or National Park Authority. Together, the NPF4 and LDP are known as the development plan.

The process of preparing the development plan is important in helping coordinate and align many different sectors and interests to improve places for communities.

Decisions taken on planning applications, known as development management decisions, must be taken in line with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise.

National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) is Scotland’s national spatial strategy which supports a Scotland where our future places will be net zero, nature-positive and designed to reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

In planning for their places and people, public bodies can meet their climate duties by applying the principles and policies set out in NPF4 in their decision making. This in turn helps public bodies to contribute to the delivery of the vision of NPF4 for the creation of:

• sustainable places, where we reduce emissions, restore and better connect biodiversity
• liveable places, where we can all live better, healthier lives
• productive places, where we have a greener, fairer and more inclusive wellbeing economy.

Public bodies, including planning authorities, will be familiar with the range of NPF4 policies that support delivery of their climate change duties, including Policy 1 Tackling the climate and nature crises and Policy 2 climate mitigation and biodiversity. Planning guidance on Policy 2 climate mitigation and adaptation provides further information to support planning authorities on policy implementation and decision making.

Local Development Plans (LDPs) are required to be prepared for every council and national park authority area, setting out a spatial strategy that articulates the ambitions and priorities for the future development of the plan area.

Development planning guidance sets out that ‘LDPs are expected to be place-based, people-centred and delivery-focused’. To be deliverable, plans should be rooted in evidence, prepared collaboratively with stakeholders within and without the planning authority, and take an infrastructure first approach to development.

Public bodies may hold data and information that is relevant to the identification and inclusion of policies, actions and measures in LDPs that could help to address climate change. It is recommended that this information is provided to planning authorities during preparation of the LDP Evidence Report, a requirement prior to the preparation of the plan itself. The LDP guidance provides comprehensive advice about the types of information that are likely to be relevant for inclusion in the Evidence Report so that NPF4 can be taken into account in preparing the LDP. Early engagement is expected to be undertaken as part of the evidence gathering, and planning authorities are required by the legislation to seek the views of certain groups of people when preparing their Evidence Reports, including the Key Agencies.

Place making and public bodies

Through applying the Place Principle and taking a place-based approach public bodies can support a key outcome for the planning system. That is the creation of quality places, spaces and environments, with net zero, resilience and sustainability at their core.

We continue to promote our award-winning and internationally-recognised Place Standard tool (PST) as a tool to support community engagement in placemaking, underpinning the Place Principle in the delivery of better places, delivering co-benefits around health and wellbeing, environment, and tackling inequality.

The Place Standard Tool with a climate lens enables additional focus on climate mitigation and adaptation alongside biodiversity and environment to further support a place-based, collaborative, and participative approach to holistically addressing these issues - alongside health, wellbeing and equity - within a place.

The Place Standard Tool with a climate lens can be a valuable starting point for community bodies preparing a local place plan (LPP). Public bodies may be approached by communities in the preparation of local place plans and are encouraged to respond positively, providing access to information and insight.

Through the LPP a community may make proposals for development or use of land that support climate mitigation or adaptation, for example sites for renewable energy, flood mitigation, initiatives for promotion of active travel and community food growing and these proposals must be taken into account in the making of the local development plan.

Public bodies are encouraged to engage with authority led, as well as community-body led, engagement exercises. This supports information sharing, understanding and decision making and ensures that the co-benefits of engagement for health and wellbeing for Scotland’s people are achieved. Engagement has the potential to provide real control for people over the decisions and outcomes that affect them.

Environmental Assessment and climate

The Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005 requires those preparing qualifying plans, including the LDP, to undertake an SEA. SEA can also benefit the preparation of an LDP, supporting better understanding of its environmental context and setting out steps to avoid, mitigate or reduce significant adverse effects, where possible, or enhance positive ones. Improving the consultation process lies at the heart of SEA, ensuring the public and those who will be consulted are provided with the relevant environmental information relating to the plan to allow them to make informed choices.

SEA processes can help plan makers consider how to prepare and deliver a better plan and achieve better environmental outcomes, while still delivering important plan objectives. The Consultation Authorities, who are NatureScot, SEPA and Historic Environment Scotland, can also play a vital role in SEA and support the plan maker by offering their environmental expertise and advice at key stages in the assessment process. The environmental assessment process can at first appear daunting, but it is worthwhile, and the benefits can significantly outweigh the time and effort spent. This is especially true when considering the twin crisis of biodiversity loss and climate change. SEA provides a means to carefully consider these issues and to find ways to avoid and minimise adverse effects on these receptors and/or enhance positive ones. The intention is that planning should deliver a zero carbon, nature positive future.

Community Planning Partnerships

Community Planning is a requirement under Part 2 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 (‘the 2015 Act’). Each local authority and listed partner bodies must carry out planning for the authority area, with the purpose of improving outcomes from public services.

Public service reform is happening at local level through Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs). There are thirty-two CPPs across Scotland, one for each local authority area. Community planning helps public bodies work together and with the local community to plan and deliver better services which improve local outcomes in a local authority area, with a view to reducing inequalities.

Community planning focuses on improving locally agreed priorities; CPPs are accountable to their communities and report to them. Each partnership must agree and publish:

• a Local Outcomes Improvement Plan (LOIP) setting out improvements to prioritise across the whole CPP area
• one or more locality plans for neighbourhoods within the CPP area where local communities experience particularly poor outcomes.

The 2015 Act also sets out what named public sector bodies need to do to meet agreed CPP priorities in their own work. Bodies subject to these duties include local authorities, NHS health boards, integration joint boards, Police Scotland, the Enterprise agencies, colleges, SEPA, Scottish Natural Heritage, Historic Environment Scotland, the National Park authorities and Regional Transport Partnerships. These bodies are subject to a duty under section 14 of the 2015 Act to cooperate with the other planning partners, and to contribute in terms of funds, staff, information and other resources to improving the agree local outcomes.

Statutory guidance on Community Planning has been published by the Scottish Government.

As discussed in chapter 3, there are many interdependencies between inequalities and climate change. Community Planning Partnerships can therefore be an ideal forum through which local partners can work together both to fulfil their climate change duties and to address local priority outcomes, and they may wish to use their CCPs for this purpose.

CPPs are supported by the Community Planning Improvement Board (CPIB). The CPIB is a group led by SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers) and supported by the Improvement Service, which aims to strengthen and promote community planning. Its stated purpose is to support CPPs to deliver their statutory duties effectively and to make better and more informed decisions that improve the lives of local communities across Scotland.

In 2021, the CPIB brought together key community planning partners to gain a deeper shared understanding of the scale of the climate change challenge, and to identify the opportunities where community planning can play a defining role in galvanising the collective change we need to see. The CPIB identified seven key themes which they believe to be essential as they work together with CPPs to achieve net zero ambitions: demonstrating leadership; working collaboratively; adopting a place-based approach; empowering communities; developing data skills; supporting skills and training; and support and resources. The briefing paper ‘Climate Change and Sustainability – Key Messages’ was published by the Improvement Service.

Community planning has a key role in ensuring we have the workforce and skills to develop and implement climate action, including the opportunity this provides for making a just transition. Community planning brings together key partners in this space including education, enterprise and the further and higher education sector, who will be instrumental in identifying and nurturing required skills.