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POLICY CONTEXT
1. This draft Scottish Planning Policy ( SPP) is the Executive's proposed policy on land use planning for waste management. When finalised it will replace NPPG 10: Planning and Waste Management. The purpose of the SPP is to provide guidance to planning authorities on their role in helping to further the National Waste Plan's objectives in relation to sustainable waste management; to help achieve compliance with environmental legislation on waste management and to ensure compliance with EC Directives. This SPP does not cover infrastructure that may be required for the storage and treatment of radioactive waste.
2. The Scottish Ministers are committed to improving Scotland's waste management record. Policy on waste management is driven by a range of initiatives and EC Directives including new targets and improved standards set out in the National Waste Plan. 1 The preferred options in the waste hierarchy 2 are to prevent, reuse and recycle or otherwise recover value from waste before disposal. To help meet some of our domestic and EU targets, the Scottish Executive's Strategic Waste Fund supports local authorities' efforts to reduce municipal waste, to recycle and compost waste and to divert waste away from landfill. Despite efforts to reduce waste however, it is clear that new waste management installations will still be needed to meet statutory requirements set out in the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994, by the Landfill Directive targets and the Landfill (Scotland) Regulations 2003. The challenge for planning is to identify locations for the required installations - crucial to Scotland's prosperity and environmental record. This will be achieved through the development plan process, underpinned by Strategic Environmental Assessment.
PLANNING WHITE PAPER AND THE PLANNING BILL
3. The Executive is modernising Scotland's planning system, in response to its 2003 Partnership Agreement commitment to improve the planning system, strengthen involvement of communities, speed up decisions, reflect local views better and allow quicker investment decisions. Proposals for modernisation reinforce the primacy of development plans so that development takes place in the context of a long-term and inclusive vision for the future. Effective development planning should provide a framework which makes positive provision for sustainable development in a way that takes account of the relationship between economic, social and environmental priorities. The Executive's White Paper on planning reform: Modernising the Planning System (2005) recognised the importance of waste management facilities and that they could be considered national or major developments. 3 Planning reform aims to address the difficulties faced in delivering infrastructure through improved performance in development planning and management, while providing open accountable decisions that reflect community interests. Support for a development proposal by the Strategic Waste Fund will not automatically signal that the proposal is of national or major significance. Separately, research into the scope of permitted development rights is currently underway and will consider a range of developments including those associated with the waste sector.
4. The European and Scottish policy context for effective waste management planning for new infrastructure is set out in the table annexed to this SPP. Implementation and outcomes described in the last column of the table are specified elsewhere in the SPP or require action by planning authorities.
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