Housing Land Audit guidance: impact assessment summary

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)

Pre-screening document

Responsible Authority: Scottish Government

Title of the plan: Housing Land Audit Guidance

What prompted the plan: Housing Land Audits (HLA) are an existing mechanism that monitor housing land through tracking the past completion of new homes and estimating the programming of future build out. They are used to inform plan preparation and decision making on planning applications. Current guidance on HLAs was published in Planning Advice Note 2/2010 and supported planning policy on housing in Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) 2010.

An update to guidance is necessary to enable better monitoring, inform decisions and support delivery. The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 and NPF4 provide a different context for HLAs in terms of new development plan procedures and quality homes policy.

Commitments to an update have been set out in NPF4 Delivery Programmes, the Ministerial / Chief Planner letter on housing (June 2024) and the Programme for Government.

Plan subject: Town and Country Planning

Brief summary of the plan: The new Housing Land Audit (HLA) guidance sets out the approach to the preparation and publication of HLAs for all planning authorities in Scotland. The purpose of the guidance is to support a consistent approach to the method and presentation of HLAs. This is important to be able to provide a comparable baseline of information across Scotland’s authorities and to aggregate the information to provide a national picture of the housing pipeline and its progress through the planning system. The guidance recognises that authorities face different circumstances locally and therefore also provides for flexibility.

Brief summary of the likely environmental consequences: As NPF4, which includes the policy requirement to prepare a HLA, was subject to SEA it is our view the environmental impact of the HLA guidance has already been determined. The additional level of detail contained in the guidance has therefore no environmental effects beyond those that were already established by the assessment of NPF4.

This non-statutory guidance is designed to offer planning authorities consistency and clarity in the preparation process of a HLA. It is therefore our view that the guidance will not have significant environmental effects in its own right.

Brief summary of how environmental principles have been considered: The environmental principles are embedded within SEA, ensuring relevant plans and programmes that are subject to SEA consider how best to avoid environmental damage and if damage does occur it is addressed. As NPF4 was subject to SEA, the environmental principles would have been considered within this assessment.

As the new HLA guidance has no environmental effects in its own right, it is our view the original assessment ensures the principles are embedded in the proposed guidance.

Contact details: Kate Houghton, Senior Planner, Planning Architecture and Regeneration Directorate, Scottish Government

Kate.houghton@gov.scot

Date of opinion: 20 November 2024