Local development plans - deliverability of site allocations: research

1 Introduction 

1.1 The Scottish Government instructed Ryden LLP, supported by Brodies LLP, to research the deliverability of site allocations in Local Development Plans (LDPs). 

1.2 The research was commissioned by the Building Standards Division (BSD) of the Scottish Government, on behalf of the Planning and Architecture Division (PAD). The research considers the types of information that will demonstrate a development site’s deliverability, which can be readily provided by those seeking an allocation in an LDP. This is intended to enable planning authorities to have a better understanding of a site’s deliverability when it is proposed for allocation.  

1.3 Proportionate information to support deliverable development plan allocations should provide greater confidence for all parties about development intentions and the delivery of that development. The research will inform work being undertaken to develop secondary legislation and guidance to support planning reform in Scotland.

1.4 The term deliverability is deliberate. The planning system does not deliver development. It identifies sites, and grants them a planning status. The modernised planning system also increasingly seeks to coordinate market actors – landowners, developers, funders, infrastructure and service providers – to promote confidence that those identified sites are capable of being delivered. 

Market Context

1.5 Development delivery rates are widely reported to be suppressed. Reasons may include the fragmentation of the development and infrastructure sectors, the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and in the housing sector the monumental shift from public to private provision since the 1980s. These may conspire to make development more complex, slower and more selective. 

1.6 Those prevailing conditions are evident in this research. Housing demand and risk aversion skew the focus towards that sector and its infrastructure challenges. Any outcomes from the research must take care to reflect the full range of housing, covering both demand and need, as well employment and commercial opportunities and wider planning goals, rather than being over-engineered to a housing-and-infrastructure delivery model.

1.7 The role that better early information within the planning system might have in releasing development potential may vary by market sector and place. Nonetheless, better information to support site allocations could potentially enhance confidence in deliverability of sites, for planning authorities, communities, landowners and developers.

1.8 This emphasis on deliverability is particularly important as the plan-led system allocates only ‘enough’ land to accommodate anticipated development – with some flexibility allowed – and thus constrains land supply. The contrasting position would be a laissez faire approach, where many sites would be allocated and thus in competition, and the specific deliverability of each site would matter less to overall outcomes.

Report Structure

1.9 The deliverability of site allocations research is presented in the following sections: 

• Policy and research review (Section 2)
• Survey of Planning Authorities and Consultations (Section 3)
• A Framework for Assessing The Deliverability of Site Allocations (Section 4)  

The report Annex provides a set of templates for site assessments.