What kind of housing policy for a fairer, greener Scotland?

Scotland’s National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) is now in the final run into adoption. It has the potential to significantly re-orient the planning system – but it could also fall short.

Following a period of consultation, a final Draft of NPF4 was presented to the Scottish Parliament on 8 November, 2022, symbolic because that was World Town Planning Day. It is more ambitious than any of the three previous iterations. It seeks to combine an overall national spatial strategy with a list of key National Developments and a Handbook of Planning Policy, all backed by a delivery programme.

More important though is the priority the new NPF gives to the climate and nature emergencies. For years the Scottish planning system was locked into the developer-friendly pursuit of “sustainable economic growth”, the definition of which did not include key concepts like “conservation” or “resources”.

Policy 1 now states “When considering all development proposals significant weight will be given to the global climate and nature crises.” Local Development Plans will now be required to ‘address the global climate emergency and nature crisis by ensuring the spatial strategy will reduce emissions and adapt to current and future risks of climate change by promoting nature recovery and restoration in the area.’

So how significant will “significant weight” be? Despite the evident intention to shift the gaze of the planning system, the section on housing remains disappointingly fixated on the volume house builders’ agenda.

What kind of housing policy for a fairer, greener Scotland?

Following an extensive consultation process the Scottish Government published “Housing 2040” last year – a vision for housing in Scotland and a route map to get there. Pretty much everyone agrees with the ambition as set out “for everyone to have a safe, good quality and affordable home that meets their needs in the place they want to be”. While understandably focussed on the role housing plays in addressing inequalities and assisting vulnerable groups, delivering this ambition requires radical changes to existing practices and buy-in from all public, private and community participants.

So to what extent does this proposed NPF4, as a key element of the route map, contribute to building confidence in delivering the “Housing 2040” ambition?  There is currently an acute shortage of social rented and other forms of below market price housing in Scotland and particularly in Edinburgh, a problem that has persisted for over 20 years now.  Indeed NPF4 highlights that the all tenure housing land requirement for Edinburgh at nearly 37,000 for the next 10 years is by far the greatest in Scotland, with Glasgow being second at 23,000.

According to the City of Edinburgh Council in its most recent housing investment statement for the City, 60% of all that is built over the coming years should be for social rent in order to meet the most acute need and demand for housing.  There is therefore an opportunity missed in NPF4 by not declaring the need for additional social rented housing as a national development in support of liveable places. Such a declaration would send the necessary message to all and including to those responsible for prioritising resource and investment commitments, that the ambition of “Housing 2040” is being supported by this key spatial planning strategy for the country, and its capital city in particular.

Can NPF4 point Scottish housing and planning to a new future?

There is much to applaud in the new NPF4. For the first time, Scottish planning is putting climate and the nature crisis at the heart of the system.  It introduces community wealth building and the circular economy. However, the approach to housing still falls short. It remains dominated by the housing numbers and the underlying presumption that if the volume house builders can get permissions for enough sites that they deem to be viable then Scotland’s housing crisis will be solved. It won’t, because housing people on low and/or insecure incomes is never going to be an attraction to investors unless the state takes on the risk in one form or another. The depth of the cost of living and energy crises makes the case for a social housing drive even stronger.

A case can be made for elevating housing to the same priority now being given to net zero and biodiversity, as prime concerns for the NPF. However, an equally radical shift of thinking would be needed to the planning and funding of housing if a real impact is to be made into the inequalities that have long been embedded in our housing system.

Authors:  Professor Cliff Hague and Keith Anderson

Cliff is a freelance consultant, researcher, author and trainer. He is the Chair of the Cockburn Asociation.

Keith is a member of the Cockburn Association Policy and Development Committee, a planer, urban designer and former CEO of Port of Leith Housing Association