A report will this week accuse the Scottish government of failing to consult on the new Forth crossing. Environment Editor Rob Edwards reports

The Scottish government has breached its own guidelines by failing to properly consult the public on the new Forth bridge and other major developments, according to a report due out this week.

Schemes to expand airports, build power stations and construct a new road crossing over the Forth have been "railroaded" through without asking the communities most directly affected by them, it says.

The report has been backed by community and environmental groups as well as MSPs. But it has been dismissed by the Scottish government as "rubbish".

On Friday, ministers published the National Planning Framework, aimed at fast-tracking large-scale developments. It endorsed plans to expand Edinburgh, Glasgow, Prestwick and Aberdeen airports, as well as build another Forth road bridge.

To the surprise of many, it also backed plans for a new coal-fired power station at Hunterston in North Ayrshire, as well as new non-nuclear plants at Longannet in Fife, Cockenzie in East Lothian and Boddam in Aberdeenshire. Various port, rail, drainage and electricity developments were also given the green light.

But a report by a public consultation expert, Clare Symonds, alleges that the process which led to all these projects being given the go-ahead was deeply flawed. The government failed to ensure that a wide enough range of groups and individuals was consulted, she says.

The government's own statement on public participation says that the selection of participants should be "representative of the public, private, voluntary and academic, community sectors and of the various equality groups".

But when a researcher working with Symonds asked how this was achieved, the response from the government was blunt.

"The government made no attempt at selection," it said. "Access to the consultation events was entirely open. This meant that participants were self-selecting."

Symonds, who runs a consultancy called Building Alternatives, argued that, as a result, the consultation mostly involved professionals, businesses and others with vested interests. Only 12% of those involved in discussion events in 2008 - held during working hours - were from community groups.

"Scotland's most important planning document has been railroaded through without allowing those whose lives will be affected to influence the process," said Symonds. "The community voice of Scotland has effectively been silenced on these large-scale planning matters."

Public inquiries into the planned developments will now be limited to matters of local interest and this will force objectors to resort to the courts or to direct action, warned Duncan McLaren, the chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland. This could lead to long delays, he said.

"For the National Planning Framework to command public legitimacy going forward, it had to be a shining exemplar of the government's commitment to early, wide and effective public participation," he said. "The findings of this research are a worrying indication that in reality public involvement has been limited."

The Green MSP Patrick Harvie accused governments of all colours of having a "dire record" on consultation.

"Almost every time, it turns into a mere fig leaf for ministers to do what they wanted in the first place, and that's what the SNP have done over planning," he said.

Harvie urged the SNP to "think again" about the airport expansion plans, which threatened to breach government targets to cut climate pollution. Communities around the airports claimed they had not been asked about the plans.

"Any debate to consider new runways should take place after genuine consultation has taken place," said Thomas Brady from Whitecrook in Clydebank, near Glasgow Airport. "This community has not been consulted."

On Wednesday, AirportWatch Scotland, which campaigns against expansion, will launch a report on Glasgow Airport at the Scottish parliament. It will claim that the airport costs the economy £1.4 billion a year because of the money Scots holidaymakers spend abroad instead of at home.

The Scottish government, however, described the allegation it had bulldozed through its plans as "rubbish", and said a wide-ranging 14-week consultation that began in January 2008 had given the public, businesses, communities and all stakeholders an opportunity to air their views.

There had been 12 regional seminars, which had attracted almost 1000 people, and 120 bilateral meetings with stakeholders. Around 250 consultation responses had been received and "carefully considered", insisted a government spokesman.

"This process has been in full accordance with Scottish government guidance on consultations and the statutory participation statement," he said. "We now have a National Planning Framework that will help create opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish and ensure we have a joined-up planning and development regime to support economic development."

The spokesman added: "The framework is essential to stimulate debate on Scotland's infrastructure needs and economic development and increasing sustainable economic growth."

In recent years the Scottish government has repeatedly promised better public participation in planning. But doubts persist as to whether those promises have been fulfilled in drawing up the National Planning Framework.

John Mayhew, from the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland, said: "If public participation in preparing the biggest plan of all falls short of exemplary good practice, then who can blame us if we start to question the reassurances we were so recently given that all would be well?"