Responding to the publication of latest Scottish Government statistics showing the time taken to decide major housing developments was almost 18 weeks slower in Q1 2016/17 than the previous quarter, industry body Homes for Scotland’s (HFS) Head of Planning Tammy Adams (right) said:

“These figures show that Scotland’s planning system is becoming less well equipped to deal with applications for major housing developments, which are key to providing the thousands of homes which our growing population desperately needs.

“The delivery of these homes should be seen as a golden thread running through the planning system but, with average decision times slowing to 48.3 weeks (three times the statutory period of 16 weeks), this is simply not the case.

“These statistics confirm the urgent need to ensure the planning system responds effectively to address Scotland’s significant housing shortfall. It must do better to support the Scottish Government’s aspiration to see a significant increase in home building to ensure housing requirements are met across the country – and enable it to meet the First Minister’s ambition of delivering 50,000 new affordable homes over the course of this Parliament.

“HFS is committed to working with the Scottish Government and other stakeholders to get to the root cause of the problem and ensure effective solutions are identified and put into practice.”