ONE of Scotland’s most successful property developers has criticised Scotland’s planning system, saying it turning investors away and stifling the economy – warning that those who do want invest will go south of the Border instead or overseas where the process is much quicker.

Urban regeneration specialist Chris Stewart said that investors may want to come to Scotland but warned that investment in property is “very connected to local and national government and policies more so that many other businesses because we rely local authorities to deliver roads consent, planning consent, building warrants and all those other bits and pieces”.

Mr Stewart, the chief executive of Edinburgh-base Chris Stewart Group, said: “If the engine of the machine needs a big service and is not operating properly then the timescales become very pronounced, especially when interest rates are higher, the cost of capital is much higher.

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“So, investors that look at our markets and say ‘I’ve got £50 million to invest, I’ve got £100m, half a billion to invest – do I want to be in a planning process that takes potentially too years or could I go to Frankfurt or Manchester’? Capital is mobile.”

Speaking on the Go Radio Business Show with Hunter & Haughey yesterday, Mr Stewart, whose business is based in the capital’s Advocate’s Close, which was itself a major regeneration project for the firm, relayed his concerns about the Housing (Scotland) Bill which the Scottish Government says is designed to prevent homelessness and protect tenant’s rights.

He warned that the Bill, coupled with the lengthy planning process north of the Border, meant that many investors, particularly in the build-to-rent sector, were looking elsewhere. “We have got to re-establish the mechanism within local authorities – whether those are enterprise-type agencies, economic development agencies – to be able to fast-track investors through those cities,” Mr Stewart stated. “That is critical.”

Noting that “it is all about action”, he expressed concern that while there are “well-intentioned people” in Scotland, many are working remotely. “They are not present in their cities,” he said. “So, how can you represent your city and how can you know what needs to be done in your city if you are not there?

“That is a big issue if you are bringing investors into a city. The key thing is that they get a sense, they know when they walk out of the station or they come off a plane and get a taxi into the city centre – they are in cities all the time and they get the temperature of what a city feels like. We have got to be open for business.”

Fife-born Mr Stewart, whose firm’s award-winning portfolio of developments includes serviced apartments at the Old Town Chambers, The Edinburgh Grand mixed-use development in St Andrew Square in the capital and the significant restoration of the A-listed Parish Halls in Glasgow, part of the high-profile Love Loan development in George Square, established his business 28 years ago after deciding that life at St Andrews University wasn’t for him.

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Finding a job with a property firm which ultimately went bust, leaving him – at the age of just 20 – to sort out a project in Glasgow developing five apartments for an investor, he recalled how he managed to do just that, get the client’s money back and make a small profit. “I left with no job, no money, so I went to a recruitment consultant and explained my story,” he recalled.

That consultant, Joanna Black, was the catalyst for setting him on the path to creating the Chris Stewart Group. She introduced him to five investors who each gave him £10,000 for his first project – a former Victorian school in Edinburgh’s Stockbridge which enabled him to create loft apartments.

“I was obsessed with the loft concepts happening at the time, there was a lot happening in London, and I wanted to bring some of that to Edinburgh – against the advice of my investors and agents. But they sold like hot cakes,” said Mr Stewart. “I’ve always tried to bring in a high level of design into what we do, quality and innovation, and to make sure we always deliver something special.”

Mr Stewart, whose firm is now one of the UK’s leading property developers and operators of a new class of residential-serviced apartments and select-service hotels, said he takes inspiration from properties and concepts across the world. “We still do study tours,” he added. “We will go to New York to look at some of their fabulous buildings, we’ll got to Dubai, we’ll look at new buildings in San Francisco to give us inspiration – the Far East, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and say ‘what can we take from that’.”