THE letter (June 29) from Fraser Carlin of the Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland and other bodies who could be said to represent the planning and development establishments arguing against the inclusion of an equal right of appeal in the Planning Bill simply ignores the reality that, without an equal right of appeal, no amount of early engagement with communities will lead to their views being respected or upheld.

Early engagement and Local Place Plans (assuming they are indeed well funded) are both positive proposals. If they did, in fact, allow community views to influence planning decisions then there would be no need for communities to invoke their right of appeal. The equal right of appeal, therefore, would act simply as a guarantor of the right of communities to have their views respected.

Mr Carlin and his co-authors dwell on the evils that they imagine an equal right of appeal would bring without explaining why retaining a developer right of appeal does not cause the same or worse evils.

Any system of appeal, whether in the criminal justice system or in professional conduct proceedings is there to improve the quality of decisions. Why should we not want to ensure that planning decisions are of the highest quality?

I believe that I reflect the views of hundreds of communities around Scotland to whom planning is “done” when I urge the minister to ignore these vested interests and reactionary voices and have the courage to put in place an equal right of appeal that could truly democratise and restore confidence in the planning system.

Alistair Stewart,

Chair, Jackton & Thorntonhall Community Council,

Newhouse of Jackton, near East Kilbride.

I NOTE the letter (June 29) from Fraser Carlin, and others regarding equal right of appeal on planning decisions. The intention that communities should be “engaged early and meaningfully” is certainly good but raises the question, what is “meaningfully”?

Proposals include “introducing well-resourced local place plans, prepared by communities”. What resources will be provided to communities? If not “well resourced” then “meaningfully” is unlikely. While it is the jobs of developers and planners to produce local plans and development proposals how can the people in local communities be expected to be find the time from their own busy lives to reach a level of skill required and prioritise preparing local place plans? Are they to be provided with consultant planners and architects who can advise on land use, road and drainage infrastructure implications and also help them consider possibilities the communities have not thought of? Following this “transparent dialogue about planning at the local level”, if an applicant comes up with a proposal which is not adequately covered by the local plan, possibly due to shortage of time and skills in the community, shouldn’t the community have an equal right of appeal at that stage?

If the envisaged increased community input at the start of the process is actually achieved this should help ensure that the elected planning authorities are reflecting the will of communities. This should help reduce the number of equal right of appeal objections by communities against planning decisions made by these elected planning authorities. It is difficult to see, as suggested in the letter, how “seldom-heard voices in the planning system may be further marginalised” by equal right of appeal as, currently, they are totally ignored.

The fear that equal right of appeal will “clog up the planning system at a time when planning departments are under severe resourcing pressures” just highlights the current problem of public staff resources being reduced to show a headline saving of public money but ignoring the much greater costs to the community, and public at large, of not cutting necessary public services jobs. This should not be used as an excuse for not providing a democratic equal right of appeal.

Giving communities an equal right of appeal should not be achieved by removing or reducing the applicant right of appeal. That applicants are aware that the local plan has strong community backing and there is a community equal right of appeal should reduce applicant’s susceptibility to even make applications which are against the public interest.

Enhancing public trust in planning would take a great step forward by providing an equal right of appeal.

Jim Stamper, retired architect,

Burnside Road, Rutherglen, Glasgow.