Masterplan Consent Areas - draft regulations: consultation

Where?

Potential locations for MCAs

32. We see potential for MCAs to be used across Scotland - for example in urban centres, strategic growth areas, and in rural and island areas.

33. MCAs have the potential to support delivery of Local Development Plan (LDP) spatial strategies and particular local priorities, by providing upfront consent for development that has been subject to community consultation and so supporting and actively incentivising investment in those planned developments.

34. MCAs have the potential to unlock significant areas, including of brownfield land, for housing development and also support wider objectives including town centre renewal, and town centre living.

Places that cannot be included in a scheme

35. Schedule 5A of the 1997 Act sets out a series of designations of international and national importance which cannot be included in a scheme. These include European Sites, SPAs and SACs, Ramsar Sites, marine protected areas, National Scenic Areas, SSSIs, World Heritage Sites and their buffers, and places covered by a nature conservation order or a land management order under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004).

Schedule 5A Paragraph 3 (4)

(4)This sub-paragraph applies to—

(a) any place that is or forms part of—

(i) a European site as defined in regulation 10(1) of the Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994 (S.I. 1994/2716),

(ii) a marine protected area,

(iii) a National Scenic Area (see section 263A),

(iv) a Ramsar site as defined in section 37A of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981,

(v) a site of special scientific interest as defined in section 58 of the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004,

(vi) a site included in the World Heritage List (“a world heritage site”) or an area identified in the World Heritage List as a buffer zone for a world heritage site, or

(b) any place in respect of which either of the following has effect—

(i) a nature conservation order made under Part 2 of the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004,

(ii) a land management order made under that Part of that Act.

36. This list was subject to consultation with the Key Agencies Group and considered and agreed by the Scottish Parliament during the passage of the 2019 Act. Paragraph 3(6) of Schedule 5A gives the Scottish Ministers the power to make regulations to modify the list.

37. Conservation areas were specifically and intentionally not excluded, given they frequently cover historic town centres, in order to give greater potential for MCAs to be used to support town centre regeneration.

Question 3:

A) We are not proposing any changes to the designations listed in schedule 5A (paragraph 3(4)). To what extent do you agree with this approach?

a) Strongly Agree b) Agree c) Neutral d) Disagree e) Strongly Disagree

B) Please explain your view.