On Valentine’s Day eve, the 13th of February 2023 to be precise, Scottish Ministers adopted Scotland’s new national planning policy, National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4). It is perhaps unlikely that ‘NPF4 Day’ will catch on to the extent of its calendar neighbour, but it marked a significant date nonetheless. NPF4 marks a seminal change in how development is expected to progress in Scotland. As the new national statutory Development Plan, NPF4 aims to ensure that the planning system at both an application and plan making level actively considers the global climate and nature crisis as high priorities. The result is that there are significant planning policy changes now in force.
Anticipating a deluge of queries, no doubt, Scottish Government issued transitional guidance just last week both to clarify how to manage potential conflict between existing Local Development Plans and the new NPF4 and to iron out a number of other big questions around how to balance plans and policies against each other. On many policy topics we await secondary guidance and planning officers, legal advisers and consultants all over Scotland will be grappling with the complexities contained in this revolutionary new document.
Phil Graham of Savills Planning said: “Everyone involved in planning in Scotland should take careful note of this new policy. It’s implications could be profound.
“In the immediate future and prior to the adoption of a new round of Local Development Plans, we anticipate a period where the exercise of good planning judgement by both the private and public sectors will be critical. NPF4 introduces so much change that competing policy content will have to be considered in the round and a sensitive balance applied in order to achieve the best planning outcomes. It will be vital for all to remember that NPF4, as well as tackling climate change and biodiversity, is also seeking to ‘rebalance’ where development takes place in Scotland; shift the emphasis of development away from greenfield to brownfield; and promote the repopulation of rural Scotland amongst other aims.”
Savills Planning will provide updates throughout the year on key topics, delving deeper into issues such as biodiversity enhancement; what support for all renewable energy types may mean in practice; how retail and town centres will be encouraged ; and how minimisation of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions might work in practice.