Planning Edinburgh

Planning Virtual Customer Forums

We will soon be holding our first ever Virtual Customer Forum sessions.

They will be an opportunity for customers and Council officers to come together to share how we have all adapted to the challenges of the last 12 months, and to discuss how we can change how we work in 2021 and beyond.

The sessions follow on from successful Customer Forums in 2019 and previous years.

They are an important part of our Planning Improvement Plan, which we recently refreshed, and follow on from our recently published Development Concordat which sets out how developers, community organisations and the Council can work together to achieve good placemaking.

There will be three separate sessions, focusing on different aspects of our customer services:

Session 1: Householder and Smaller Local Developments – Tuesday 16 March, 3pm-4.30pm

Session 2: Community Groups – Thursday 18 March, 3pm-4.30pm

Session 3: Major and Larger Local Developments – Tuesday 23 March, 3pm-4.30pm

All sessions will be held online via Microsoft Teams.

If you or a colleague/fellow community group member would like to attend a forum, please email planning.servicedelivery@edinburgh.gov.uk with your details by 10 March.

Please state what company/organisation you’ll be representing and, if you’re an agent, which session you think best fits you. We’ll contact attendees with joining instructions for the online meeting closer to the time.

We hope you can make it, and help us improve the Planning service for the benefit of its customers and the city.

The Edinburgh Development Concordat

We have published our new Development Concordat which sets out how developers, community organisations and the Council can work together to achieve good placemaking.

The Concordat seeks to help the city’s economic recovery by promoting collaboration. It builds on the values and principles of the 2050 Edinburgh City Vision which provides clear aspirations for what the city is looking to achieve.

The Concordat recognises the need for agility, flexibility and collaborative engagement between Council services, the development and business communities and community organisations. We all need to work together to address the City’s recovery.

Developers are encouraged to promote the value of early and meaningful engagement including post planning decision engagement with Community Councils in shaping and realising development proposals. Within this context, the changes to pre-application consultation proposed by the Scottish Government: consultation should be recognised.

Community Organisations are encouraged to promote the vital role in representing the views of the wider community when new developments are proposed and to work collaboratively with developers from pre-application through to post planning decision.

The Council will promote the ways that developers and representative community organisations can engage with each other and will promote a “whole Council approach” as an enabler of development to facilitate a more continuous “end to end” approach taking in all of the development functions of the Council throughout the whole development process.

Cllr Neil Gardiner, Convener of the Planning Committee, said

“Edinburgh attracts a wide range of major investments and developments and more minor applications which can be complex. It’s important that the process is as smooth as possible for applicants and that we give quality, consistent and timely advice at all times.

The Concordat highlights the need for early community engagement in the planning process.

Good collaboration is even more important at the moment and the Concordat will help us all work together to address the city’s recovery. This Concordat is about adding value and helping to create good places.”

The Concordat was approved by the Council’s Policy and Sustainability Committee and replaces the Edinburgh Planning Concordat which has existed in various forms since 2009.

Read the full Edinburgh Development Concordat here.

Public Life Street Assessments

The 2016 Public Life Street Assessments were undertaken by consultants and were funded by the ‘Smarter Choices Smarter Places’ programme. The studies were used in the preparation of the 2017 Town Centre Supplementary Guidance.

A series of studies investigating the public life of Edinburgh’s town centres reveal how each currently functions in terms of pedestrian/cyclist movement and as a place.

Public Life Street Assessments, carried out by design consultants HERE+NOW for the Council, involve a mix of direct observation methodologies, user interviews and more focussed sub studies such as facade, land use and activity studies. In-depth analysis of this data identifies trends in the way people currently use the street environment. This has informed suggested opportunities for improvement.

The assessments supplement the Council’s existing knowledge about how these town centres function and build on existing thinking and work to date, including the Local Development Plan, Town Centre Toolkit and Edinburgh Street Design Guidance.

The studies provide valuable information for all parties with an interest in maximising public life within Edinburgh’s town centres. They have already informed the preparation of Supplementary Guidance for each of the town centres, draft Locality Improvement Plans and a design and an improved public space trial project within Stockbridge.