Item10AAPlanningServicePriorities2020-21

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 28/08/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: PLAN­NING SER­VICE PRI­OR­IT­IES ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁

Pre­pared by: Gav­in Miles, Head of Planning

Pur­pose of Report

To review pro­gress over the last year and to ask the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to con­sider and approve the pro­posed plan­ning ser­vice pri­or­it­ies for ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁.

Sum­mary

The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee con­siders a set of plan­ning ser­vice pri­or­it­ies to be delivered each year as part of our pro-act­ive approach to per­form­ance improve­ment. Dur­ing ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ the plan­ning ser­vice com­pleted three of the six pri­or­it­ies that had been iden­ti­fied for the year, partly because some crit­ic­al staff short­ages and oth­er sig­ni­fic­ant work. For the year ahead, 6 ser­vice pri­or­it­ies are pro­posed in addi­tion to the core ser­vice deliv­ery tar­gets includ­ing the ana­lys­is of responses to the LDP con­sulta­tion and sub­sequent LDP exam­in­a­tion. Once approved, these will be included in indi­vidu­al staff work pro­grammes for ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁.

Recom­mend­a­tion

That the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee con­sider and approve the pro­posed plan­ning ser­vice pri­or­it­ies for ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁.

Back­ground and Context

1. In April 2019, the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved plan­ning ser­vice improve­ment pri­or­it­ies for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀. These improve­ment pri­or­it­ies have informed the work of the plan­ning ser­vice dur­ing ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ and are an import­ant part of the CNPA’s annu­al Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work (PPF) report. The plan­ning ser­vice is now in the pro­cess of identi­fy­ing improve­ment pri­or­it­ies to steer work over the com­ing year. The pro­posed improve­ment pri­or­it­ies out­lined in this report are inten­ded to com­ple­ment and enhance the core plan­ning ser­vices that the CNPA deliv­ers (devel­op­ment plan pre­par­a­tion and deliv­ery, devel­op­ment man­age­ment, mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment). They are not a sub­sti­tute for that work, but are about doing it in bet­ter ways to deliv­er bet­ter out­comes for cus­tom­ers and the CNPA.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 28/08/2020

Review of Ser­vice Pri­or­it­ies from ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀

1. The six pro­posed ser­vice improve­ments agreed by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in April 2019 are shown in Table I below, along with a brief pro­gress report on delivery.

Table I

2019⁄20 Ser­vice Pri­or­it­ies	Com­plete?
1 Sim­pli­fy mech­an­isms for secur­ing plan­ning oblig­a­tions and reduce the need for plan­ning agree­ments – Estab­lish­ing sim­pler, cheap­er and faster ways of secur­ing neces­sary plan­ning oblig­a­tions. Lim­ited pro­gress, with Non-stat­utory guid­ance pro­duced but not yet con­sul­ted on. Con­sulta­tion to take place in 2020 with adop­tion tak­ing place along­side the next LDP.	Par­tially
2 Devel­op and deliv­er a schools engage­ment / involve­ment pro­gramme – As part of the CNPA’s approach to involving young people dur­ing the year of young people An event was organ­ised for March 2020 but was can­celled due to COV­ID-19 Lock­down and it is still not yet pos­sible to hold the planned event. Con­sequently a new youth engage­ment pro­gramme is being designed. It will be pos­sible to take the carry­out the new pro­gramme com­pletely online if neces­sary ensur­ing that fur­ther dis­rup­tion does not pre­vent engage­ment tak­ing place.	Par­tially
3 Plan and deliv­er a work­shop on nat­ur­al her­it­age with SNH, SEPA and Loc­al Author­it­ies — Shar­ing good prac­tice and ensur­ing con­sist­ent applic­a­tion of policy and prac­tice across the Nation­al Park. An online event has been held and was atten­ded by just over 70 indi­vidu­als from across the UK.	Yes
4 •Under­take a mon­it­or­ing scheme on hol­i­day and second home own­er­ship, changes of use from res­id­en­tial prop­erty and impacts on com­munit­ies – The devel­op­ment of the LDP has increased aware­ness of the changes in use of res­id­en­tial prop­erty to short term hol­i­day let­ting prop­erty. The data avail­able through coun­cil tax and non-domest­ic rates records requires some ground troth­ing for accur­acy and the CNPA will under­take some addi­tion­al mon­it­or­ing of newly com­pleted hous­ing devel­op­ments. We will also pub­lish a Plan­ning Advice Note to explain the rules on use and changes of use. Mon­it­or­ing of second and empty homes takes place annu­ally. The CNPA have also com­mis­sioned Inside AirB­nB to deliv­er data on short-term lets. This work is still underway.	Par­tially

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 28/08/2020

Table I 2019⁄20 Ser­vice Pri­or­it­ies	Com­plete?
5 Increase our mon­it­or­ing of hill tracks devel­op­ment and aware­ness of policy amongst estates and land man­agers – Our mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment of unau­thor­ised hill tracks has increased over the past three years. Dur­ing 2019⁄20 we will com­plete a mon­it­or­ing pro­ject using aer­i­al pho­to­graphy and will provide fur­ther guid­ance for estates and land man­agers. Hill tracks with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park have been mapped and landown­ers have been con­sul­ted on the res­ults. Work to pub­li­cise will take place in 2020⁄21.	Yes
6 Con­sol­id­ate past improve­ments and pro­ced­ures – Over the past few years, the plan­ning team has set ambi­tious ser­vice improve­ment pri­or­it­ies. At a time when we have also recruited a num­ber of new staff, embed­ding changes requires con­sist­ent work and effort. This improve­ment is an essen­tial part of the plan­ning team’s work. We con­tin­ue to embed past pro­ced­ures and look to enhance pre­vi­ous improvements.	Yes

Ser­vice Pri­or­it­ies for ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁

1. The pro­posed plan­ning ser­vice improve­ments for ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ are shown in Table 2. These fur­ther improve­ments have been dis­cussed with­in the staff team and also aim to respond to gen­er­al feed­back received from stake­hold­ers, includ­ing through the Plan­ning Rep­res­ent­at­ives Net­work and the Developers For­um. The pro­posed pri­or­it­ies build upon the pro­gress that has been made in pre­vi­ous years. We delayed bring­ing these ser­vice pri­or­it­ies to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee dur­ing the first months of ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ in order to get a bet­ter under­stand­ing of how Cov­id-19 would affect our abil­ity to deliv­er work.

Table 2

Pro­posed 2020⁄21 Plan­ning Ser­vice Improvements
1 Sim­pli­fy mech­an­isms for secur­ing plan­ning oblig­a­tions and reduce need for plan­ning agree­ments. Estab­lish­ing sim­pler, cheap­er and faster ways of secur­ing neces­sary plan­ning obligations
2 Improve Mon­it­or­ing of Plan­ning Applic­a­tions Improve data on exist­ing con­sents to aid with mon­it­or­ing and deliv­ery of LDP
3 Devel­op and deliv­er a youth engage­ment / involve­ment pro­gramme Roll out a pro­gram of work to engage young people, includ­ing the involve­ment of the Cairngorms Youth Action Group, in the plan­ning system.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 28/08/2020

Table 2 Pro­posed 2020⁄21 Plan­ning Ser­vice Improvements
4 Make the plan­ning pro­cess more access­ible Use digit­al tech­no­logy to provide bet­ter access to plan­ning com­mit­tee enabling more people to engage with the decision mak­ing process.
5 Under­take a mon­it­or­ing scheme on hol­i­day and second home own­er­ship, changes of use from res­id­en­tial prop­erty and impacts on com­munit­ies The devel­op­ment of the LDP has increased aware­ness of the changes in use of res­id­en­tial prop­erty to short term hol­i­day let­ting prop­erty. The data avail­able through coun­cil tax and non-domest­ic rates records requires some ground troth­ing for accur­acy and the CNPA will under­take some addi­tion­al mon­it­or­ing of newly com­pleted hous­ing devel­op­ments. We will also pub­lish a Plan­ning Advice Note to explain the rules on use and changes of use.
6 Devel­op the Cairngorms Nation­al Park’s approach to a Region­al Spa­tial Strategy Build­ing on the exist­ing stra­tegic frame­work provided by the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.
7 Con­sol­id­ate past improve­ments and pro­ced­ures Over the past few years, the plan­ning team has set ambi­tious ser­vice improve­ment pri­or­it­ies. At a time when we have also recruited a num­ber of new staff, embed­ding changes requires con­sist­ent work and effort.

Next Steps

1. Once the ser­vice improve­ments are approved, staff will incor­por­ate them into the Plan­ning Ser­vice Unit Plan for the year and into individual’s work plans. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee will con­tin­ue to receive reg­u­lar updates on plan­ning ser­vice performance.

2. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Train­ing Pro­gramme for ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ is being drawn togeth­er now. The train­ing pro­gramme will include ses­sions on:

a) Trees, wood­land and plan­ning b) Use of bonds/​insurance guar­an­tees c) Good design and place­mak­ing d) Field trips (or vir­tu­al vis­its) to devel­op­ments com­pleted or in pro­gress e) Plan­ning Com­mit­tee self-reflec­tion session

Gav­in Miles August 2020 gavinmiles@​cairngorms.​co.​uk