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Policy Context
5. Enforcement has a fundamental role in the operation of an effective planning system. Unauthorised development and breaches of planning control need to be discouraged, and if necessary, dealt with quickly, efficiently and rigorously to demonstrate to the public that the planning system operates fairly and in the public interest.
6. A breach of planning control is defined as carrying out development without the required planning permission, or failing to comply with any condition or limitation contained in planning permission as granted (s123(1)of the 1997 Act). Many, if not the significant majority, of breaches of planning control are inadvertent and are usually easily resolved without the need for formal action to be taken.
7. For many individuals, their first contact with the planning system, unless they are themselves making a planning application, is through the enforcement system. In many cases the system may seem to be lengthy and 'unfair' in that there appears to be no penalty for unauthorised development.
8. The White Paper Modernising The Planning System, published in June 2005, set out Ministers' views that the provisions in the 1997 Act meet The Scottish Government's objectives that planning enforcement should remedy the undesirable effects of unauthorised development, and bring unauthorised development under control.
9. Ministers further agreed that while the basic principles of the current framework did not need to be changed, there was scope for improving the delivery of planning enforcement with the introduction of some new or extended powers. Primary legislation to introduce these powers was therefore set out in the Planning etc. (Scotland) Act 2006, which received Royal Assent in December 2006 after being passed by the Scottish Parliament.
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