Housing Land Audit guidance: impact assessment summary

Introduction

National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) requires planning authorities to complete annual Housing Land Audits (HLAs) to monitor the delivery of housing land. HLAs track the past completion of new homes and estimate the programming of future build out. They are used to inform local development plan preparation and decision making on planning applications. Current guidance on preparing HLAs was published in Planning Advice Note 2/2010 and supported planning policy on housing in Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) 2010.

Guidance to support the preparation of HLAs is being updated to enable better monitoring, inform decisions and support delivery. The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 and NPF4 also provide a significantly different context for HLAs in terms of new development plan procedures and quality homes policy.

This document considers the requirement for Impact Assessments needed in support of the publication of this updated Scottish Government guidance. The guidance is non-statutory and technical in nature, and provides further detail on implementing policy in NPF4, adopted and published by the Scottish Ministers on 13 February 2023.