Climate Change Act - Section 72: twelfth annual report

1 Summary

This report provides information and conclusions fulfilling the Scottish Government's annual reporting requirements on the operation Section 3F of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, as inserted by Section 72 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 ('the 2009 Act'). The preparation of this report is required by Section 73 of the 2009 Act.

Section 3F requires local development plans prepared by planning authorities to include policies on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all new buildings through the installation and operation of low and zero-carbon energy generating technologies. This report found that approximately 94% of planning authorities now have a policy in place in their adopted plans which responds to section 3F.

An assessment of the effectiveness of the approach at reducing emissions is also required. Previous versions of this report have highlighted research commissioned by the Scottish Government, which found that Section 3F is not the key driver to emissions reductions in new buildings.^[1] This report does not alter that finding. The Scottish Government has since commissioned research on section 3F to inform the development of a revised National Planning Framework.^[2]

The national policy position is provided in chapters 1 and 2 of this report, and the local development plan context is outlined in chapter 3.