« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
2 NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
2.1 To offer, in this consultation paper, some clarity and understanding on each of the three hierarchy categories of development, further information is given here about national developments. However respondents should be aware that the Act provides the powers to describe in Regulations classes of major and local developments - not national developments. Comments will be invited on the proposed national developments in a separate consultation on the second National Planning Framework2.
2.2 The Act states that national developments are designated under section 3A (4) (b). This means that the National Planning Framework may describe a development and designate it, or a class of development and designate each development in that class, a national development. National developments are exclusively those designated as such in the National Planning Framework.
2.3 A statement on the criteria for identifying national developments in Scotland's second National Planning Framework was made in Parliament on 13 September 2007 by John Swinney MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth. Projects which may be identified as national developments are those which:
- make a significant contribution to Scotland's sustainable economic development;
- strengthen Scotland's links with the rest of the world;
- deliver strategic improvements in internal connectivity;
- make a significant contribution to the achievement of climate change, renewable energy or waste management targets;
- are essential elements of a programme of investment in national infrastructure; or
- raise strategic issues of more than regional importance (projects with impacts on more than one city region, for example).
2.4 National developments will in essence be infrastructure projects, which, in the Scottish Government's view, have a critical contribution to make to our overall purpose of creating a more successful country.
2.5 The draft national planning framework will contain a statement of Ministers' reasons for considering that there is a need for the developments in question. Our proposals for national developments will be subject to scrutiny by the Parliament as part of the statutory process of consultation on the National Planning Framework.
« Previous | Contents | Next »