Heat Pump Sector Deal Expert Advisory Group: Scottish Government response

Recommendation 9

The Scottish Government should issue guidance to local authorities to ensure that the planning system plays a fully strategic and proactive role in encouraging and supporting heat pump deployment.

Scottish Government Response

The Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies (Scotland) Order 2022^[10] places a duty on Scottish local authorities to develop Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies (LHEES) and Delivery Plans by December 2023, to enable local planning, coordination and delivery of the decarbonisation of Scotland's homes and buildings.

LHEES will set out the long-term plan for decarbonising heat in buildings and improving their energy efficiency across an entire local authority area, and support local authorities and housing associations to target the deployment of zero emissions heating (including heat pumps) and energy efficiency measures for social rented properties. The Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies and Delivery Plans Guidance^[11] was published on 20 October 2022.

Our Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4)^[12] will signal a turning point for planning and we have been clear that responding to both the global climate emergency and the nature crisis is central to that. LHEES is recognised as a means to support our response.

We laid the draft Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4) in the Scottish Parliament on 10 November 2021. Alongside Parliamentary scrutiny of the draft, we ran a public consultation, supported by an extensive engagement programme, with comments invited by 31 March 2022. We are now carefully considering the broad range of views shared with us before laying a finalised NPF4 in the Scottish Parliament in Autumn 2022.