Planning process quickens for local developments, but slows for major
Decision times for local planning developments have speeded up, but approval for major developments is taking much longer compared to the previous quarter and previous year, according to the latest figures on quarterly planning performance in Scotland from the country's Chief Statistician.
In quarter 1 (April to June) of 2016-17 the average time over the 7,329 decisions made on local developments was 8.9 weeks, almost one and a half weeks quicker than the previous quarter (10.3 weeks), and five days faster than the equivalent quarter in 2015-16 (9.6 weeks). It was also the quickest average decision time since data collection began in 2012-13.
For the 61 decisions made on major developments, however, the average decision time was 39.3 weeks, 13 weeks slower than the previous quarter (26.3 weeks) and more than five weeks slower than the first quarter in 2015-16 (34.2 weeks).
The figures exclude any applications concluded through the use of a processing agreement between the developer and the local authority, where an agreement on timescales for decisions can be made either at the beginning of the application process or at a later stage.
The overall rate of approvals for all types of application was slightly up, at 94.0%.