Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Edinburgh planning appeal highlights potential impact of new presumption in favour of development, says expert

26 Jun 2015, 1:27 pm

Plans for a 650-home development on 'green belt' farmland to the south east of Edinburgh have been allowed on appeal after the reporter found the presumption in favour of certain developments in the Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) outweighed the local authority's objections.

The latest version of the SPP, which was published in June 2014, introduced a presumption in favour of sustainable development as a "significant material consideration" where local development plans were out of date or silent on a particular planning issue.

Planning law expert Fiona Gordon of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that the decision was "significant" and "highlighted the potential" for the new presumption to "result in large-scale greenfield releases when coupled with a shortfall in the effective five-year housing supply".

"As an example of the 'teeth' behind the presumption, this decision is likely to have many local authorities looking anxiously over any perceived shortfalls in their supply whilst giving developers an indication of the potential value in seeking to exploit these," she said.

Developer Mactaggart & Mickel had submitted plans for 600-650 new homes, a primary school, open space and a commercial area to be constructed across a 36.7 hectare site at South Gilmerton Farm at the end of April 2014, two months before the new SPP was issued, according to Property Week (registration required). It appealed to the Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals (DPEA), Scotland's planning body, in January 2015 after the council failed to either make a decision on the application or update its local plan.

South Gilmerton Farm is designated as 'green belt' land in the plan, which would generally protect it from most types of development. However, Mactaggart & Mickel had argued that the plan was out of date as it was more than five years old and did not allocate a full five years' worth of land for further development, as recommended by the SPP.

Although the reporter acknowledged that the proposed development was not the type that would generally be considered appropriate for land within the green belt, he said that the housing shortfall in the council's local plan meant that it could not be considered up to date. For this reason, the presumption in favour of development in the SPP overruled what was contained in the local plan, he said.