Masterplan Consent Areas: guidance

Why MCAs? - The Benefits

Place Leadership

• Proactive approach, local authority takes the lead, set the bar for quality
• Agreed shared vision/ ambition for the place facilitate the type of development want to see come forward
• Collaborative working, align efforts/new way of working: planners plan, developers develop
• Place-based masterplan at core, supporting placemaking

Streamlined consenting

• Co-ordinated, joined up approach can provide different consents in a single authorisation (planning permission, roads construction consent, conservation area consent, listed building consent)
• Engagement built into single process focussed on the project/place reduces consultation fatigue
• Can be used at different scales (strategic, centres, local place)
• See all the main conditions together

Facilitating investment in places

• Supports delivery of local development plan & developments in the long-term public interest
• Provides certainty - saving time, money and effort for developers, enabling delivery of investment & infrastructure
• Can co-ordinate masterplanning across areas of different land ownership
• Promotional tool can be used as part of marketing sites
• Supports delivery of outcomes

Place Leadership

23. MCAs are a means to take forward place-based approaches. They are an important addition to the planning and placemaking toolkit, as a way for authorities to proactively shape and facilitate the type of development they want to happen in their areas.

24. MCAs will allow planning authorities to plan; front-loading consideration of design, infrastructure and environmental matters at an earlier stage in the planning process. This can allow local authorities to take a leadership role in the planning of high-quality places, rather than reacting to applications put before them.

25. They are a flexible placemaking tool, grounded in and responding to a place, and how it may change to meet local needs and outcomes. With a masterplan at their heart, MCAs are an opportunity for the authority to set its expectations around quality. MCAs can incentivise high quality development by providing a streamlined consent process for those proposals which comply with the scheme, helping to create well-designed places in line with the Six Qualities of Successful Places identified in National Planning Framework 4.

26. Collaboration is an integral part of how Scottish Ministers see MCAs working. With the planning authority taking the lead, it can work with:

• communities - taking account of local needs and aspirations,
• investors, developers, landowners and their agents - to coordinate development, on large sites, where there may be different landowners, and to ensure the scheme’s requirements are feasible and deliverable, and potentially to share work, appraisals and assessments needed to put the scheme in place; and
• key agencies to ensure their interests are addressed.

27. MCAs are new, and we recognise that this new approach will involve a degree of culture change amongst the different parties to embrace this different way of doing things. But it is an exciting approach for planners to plan and facilitate development, and for developers to focus on delivery.

Streamlined consenting

28. MCAs offer potential to provide a holistic streamlined approach to consenting, providing planning permission, plus roads construction consent, listed building consent, and conservation area consent – where provided for in the particular MCA scheme. It also offers the ability to set out the conditions of the various consents together.

29. By dealing with the issues relating to the different types of consent, and different developments that might come forward in an area in the round, it will offer an opportunity to more meaningfully engage with the community and reduce consultation fatigue, rather than having to reconsider similar issues as part of different consenting regimes.

Facilitating investment in places

30. MCAs will be able to be used to prioritise investment in particular locations or to secure delivery of local priorities, outcomes and proposals in the local development plan (LDP). MCAs can make their areas more attractive to potential investors and developers by providing certainty and removing much of the risk.

31. The MCA scheme can also offer a degree of flexibility, so that a general consent is in place offering broad scope for developers, including investors, to take forward proposals within an area.

32. By planning authorities putting in the upfront work, including community engagement, frontloading site consideration, aligning of consents and granting permission for planned development, it can help bring forward more ‘shovel ready’ sites. This can help attract investment, deliver services, infrastructure and jobs and high-quality places.

33. The land covered by an MCA scheme does not need to be within the ownership of the local authority. MCAs can be used as part of collaborative working between the planning authority, landowners, developers and investors, key agencies and the community. With the planning authority taking the lead, it can take account of local needs and aspirations, and work with developers to ensure what the scheme requires is feasible and deliverable.

34. Where necessary, compulsory purchase is a useful tool to enable local authorities and other public bodies to acquire land to enable projects such as those included in MCAs, which are in the public interest, to proceed when they would otherwise not due to landownership issues.

Environmental, community and design ‘checks and balances' built in

35. It is important to note that an MCA is not about over-simplifying the process, nor does it mean a loss of standards of development, amenity or protection for the environment. With the focus on a place-based masterplan, it can be tailored to the site/place. A number of ‘checks and balances’ are built into the process:

• The masterplan in the scheme can be specifically tailored to take account of designated assets or particular character areas which could be subject to conditions to protect and enhance their unique characteristics.
• Detailed design guidance/conditions can be produced upfront as part of the MCA scheme to ensure that designated assets and other valued features are preserved or enhanced.
• Community engagement is fully built into the process for preparing an MCA scheme, with early engagement required (for MCA schemes which belong to the categories of national developments or major developments), and opportunities to comment on the proposed scheme, and requirement on the planning authority to take representations into account.
• Statutory consultees will be consulted in the preparation of MCA schemes and will have an opportunity to comment on their content and conditions, ensuring heritage, environmental and other issues are appropriately considered upfront.
• Notification to Ministers - Ministers have the power to issue directions to authorities requiring them to notify them of proposals for making or altering a scheme. Ministers can also call-in any MCA scheme for their own consideration, to provide added scrutiny if necessary.