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Town and Country Planning (Fees for Appeals) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 (SSI 2025/124)
Good morning, and welcome to the 15th meeting in 2025 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent.
The first item on our agenda consideration of three negative instruments, the first of which is the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Appeals) (Scotland) Regulations 2025. Do members have any comments on the instrument?
I have some comments on two of the instruments. On this one, I am a bit concerned about small and medium-sized enterprises and community-led housing being caught up in the regulations. Before my time in the Parliament, there was discussion during the passage of Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 about the fact that the regulations would be coming. I would be interested in hearing from the Minister for Public Finance about how we handle the situation for SME construction companies and developers, and community-led housing.
I would also like to ask him about the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Local Reviews) (Scotland) Regulations 2025, which is instrument that we will be discussing today.
I share your concerns about the impact on SME developers in particular, and that we are potentially pricing them out of the appeals system. I might feel differently if developers were submitting appeals for every application that was refused and if those applications were all being rejected on appeal, but the figures show that more than 50 per cent are approved on appeal. I am worried that the fees could constrain the pipeline of housing delivery at a critical time. It would be right to ask the minister about those concerns.
Yes, that would be good. Being the planning committee, we also know about the equal challenges in planning, so it would be good to hear about how the minister plans to balance those challenges.
I agree with the comments that have been made already. We are in a housing emergency, which has been acknowledged not only by councils up and down the country but in the Scottish Parliament.
I agree with Mark Griffin’s comments about SMEs in particular. We do not want them to be priced out of development. We need to ensure that developments can happen across the country in suitable and appropriate areas. Based on that, I believe that we should have the minister in to discuss that matter further and so that we can ask questions.
Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025 (SSI 2025/125)
The second instrument is the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025. Is the committee agreed that we do not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
Town and Country Planning (Fees for Local Reviews) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 (SSI 2025/126)
The third instrument is the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Local Reviews) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 (SSI 2025/126). Do members have any comments on the instrument?
As I said in my previous comments, it would be helpful to receive a response from the minister in charge.
No other member has indicated that they wish to speak on the instrument. We will arrange to bring in the Minister for Public Finance next week.
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Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2