A DEVELOPMENT slowdown has seen the number of major construction projects drop to a five-year low.
Official figures show the number of large planning applications given the green light in the last financial year fell to 238 – compared to 310 in 2013/14.
Meanwhile, the number of smaller projects ushered through by local authorities also dropped, from 30,026 five years ago to 26,220 in 2017/18.
Major developments include applications for 50 or more homes, as well as certain waste, water, transport and energy-related schemes and larger retail projects.
Glasgow approved the largest number of major planning applications, with 28 new housing schemes given the go-ahead.
But statistics show local authorities are making planning decisions faster than they were in previous years.
The overall average decision time for "local developments" – which include applications for changes to individual homes – is the quickest since records began six years ago.
Local development decisions were faster by an average of just over a day compared with 2016/17.
And a total of 19 out of 34 planning authorities reported improvements in their average decision times.
There were 42 major applications that took longer than a year to be ruled on in 2017/18.
Nine of these took more than two years – while the longest application took more than seven years to decide on.
Planning minister Kevin Stewart welcomed news that the majority of developments were approved.
He said: “It is encouraging to see continued progress in speeding up the decision making process and that 93 per cent of the 35,000 applications received were approved, helping to deliver the housing, infrastructure and investment that current and future generations need.
“Our proposals in the Planning Bill, which is currently being considered by the Scottish Parliament, will further increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the system.”
It comes after it emerged Scotland’s economy grew at less than half the rate of the wider UK last year.
Growth increased in the last three months of 2017, but continued to lag behind the rest of the UK.
Meanwhile, a recent survey by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Scotland found a lack of supply continues to push up house prices.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here