Masterplan Consent Area Regulations: consultation responses summary

Introduction

Background

The ‘Masterplan consent area regulations: consultation’ related to proposed regulations on the procedures to prepare Masterplan Consent Areas (MCAs).

Two sets of draft regulations were consulted upon:

• The Town and Country Planning (Masterplan Consent Areas) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. These regulations provide additional procedural detail around the requirements for preparing MCA schemes across Scotland.
• The Masterplan Consent Area Scheme (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. These sought to mirror the provisions within The Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017.

A number of impact assessment screenings and a partial impact assessment were completed to support the Draft MCA Regulations. The Scottish Government is required to consider the impacts of proposed policies, plans or strategic decisions in relation to equalities, various societal groups and sectors, data protection and the environment, under a range of legislation and commitments. The responses to the question on impact assessments within the consultation paper have informed the preparation of the final impact assessments.

The consultation

All Scottish Government consultations are published on the Citizen Space platform, which enables respondents to access the consultation paper and respond online. This consultation ran for 12 weeks it opened on 28 February 2024 and closed on 22 May 2024. It asked 20 questions and we received 62 responses. The consultation paper and supporting impact assessment documents are available on Citizen Space.

Content of this Report

We would like to thank all our stakeholders for responding to this consultation and providing a wealth of information to inform our next steps. We have considered the detailed comments provided in each of the 62 responses which were received.

This report is not a full analysis and does not aim to reflect every viewpoint expressed in the consultation responses. It provides a summary of common themes submitted to this consultation and captures key points raised. The full responses have been published online for all those organisations and individuals who gave permission to do so: Masterplan consent area regulations: consultation - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space

Summary of Findings

There was a good level of support for the majority of the proposals in the consultation. There were high levels of support for the proposed consultation requirements when preparing a MCA scheme, the proposed Notification Direction and the suggested approach to MCA conditions.

There were, however, some proposals where there was a notable proportion of respondents in disagreement. The highest levels of disagreement related to the approach to Environmental Impact Assessment and the approach to not prescribe forms as part of the regulations.

Throughout the consultation responses various suggestions were received as to points to be included within guidance to accompany the regulations, and the issue of funding of MCAs was also raised.

Methodology – analysis and reporting

This consultation summary report has been undertaken in-house, led by the policy lead for the consultation. Discussions were also held with Scottish Government research analysts to inform our in-house consultation summary approach, and for quality assurance purposes.

The Citizen Space platform reflects our aspirations for good consultation through open, high quality, standardised processes. The platform allows Scottish Government officials to access, moderate and publish responses, it also provides some analytical reports.

The analysis of the consultation followed four key stages.

Stage 1 – Organising data

• numbering each response / unique identifier
• checking and validating the data. Involved collating all the data from both Citizen Space and emailed responses in a master spreadsheet.
• reviewing and ‘cleaning’ the data by identifying any potential defamatory responses, any potential campaign responses, blank forms and duplicate responses.
• identifying those respondents who asked to remain anonymous. This allowed the identification of responses to quote from - those in which the organisation or individual had agreed for both their response and name to be published.
• allocating responses to respondent categories as shown in the Respondent Profile section below and used in tables throughout this report.

Stage 2 – Quantitative analysis

• quantitative analysis of the responses to each question.
• production of tables to present the results.

Stage 3 – Qualitative analysis

• initial read of all comments made in response to these questions, followed by the identification of key emerging themes, trends and the most appropriate processes for coding and analysis.
• Coding using Microsoft Excel, including quality assurance checking.

Stage 4 – Reporting

• question by question analysis.
• all closed questions have been shown by numeric (baseline) and percentage analysis and broken down by respondent category.
• responses contained a large volume of evidence and views. All points in the responses have been considered, and will inform the final regulations. This report sets out key themes and issues raised, it does not seek to repeat every individual point. Where consent has been given to publish the response, it may be found on the Scottish Government's website at Masterplan consent area regulations: consultation - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space
• the following terms have been used to consistently indicate the frequency with which a theme or point was raised:
  • Almost all – an overwhelming majority of participants
  • Most – a comfortable majority of participants, i.e. around 75%
  • Several – around 50% of responses
  • Some – less than 50% of responses but more than 3
  • A few – up to 3 responses
• where points were raised which did not relate directly to the question these have been considered under ‘Other points raised’.

This report presents a question-by-question quantitative analysis of answers to the closed questions and further comments at open questions.

It should be noted that not every respondent answered every question, resulting in some questions having more responses than others. Therefore, when analysing the responses, figures and percentages are calculated based on the number of responses that particular question received, not the total number of respondents to the consultation as a whole. Due to rounding, some percentages may not add up precisely to 100%.

As with any public consultation exercise, it should be noted that those responding generally have a particular interest in the subject area. Therefore, the views they express cannot necessarily be seen as representative of wider public opinion.

Respondent Profile

In total 62 responses were received.

Respondents were asked to identify whether they were responding as an individual or on behalf of a group or organisation. 5 responses were from individual members of the public and 57 responses were from groups or organisations.

Respondents were allocated to one of six groups by the analysis team. A breakdown of the number of responses received by respondent type is set out below, and a full list of respondents by group is provided at Annex 1.