building – Page 2 – Planning Edinburgh

Local Development Plan Update: Our New Development Plan Scheme

After the Local Development Plan (LDP) was published, we asked you for your feedback on how well you had been involved. The results of this survey can be viewed here.

The Development Plan Scheme

The newest Development Plan Scheme was approved on the 7 September 2017. Every Development Plan Scheme has a Participation Statement. This sets out how we will engage with the public as we get ready to prepare for the next LDP.

The planning system can impact everyone. So, it is important that all members of the public, community groups and organisations have their say about what’s in a LDP.

Thomas Morton Hall 18 Jan 2012 2 (002) — Engagement Workshop we held for our current LDP at Thomas Morton Hall in January 2012.

Improving Engagement

This year, we have considered the feedback we received from the LDP engagement survey when writing our Participation Statement.

Following the public’s comments, we are now working towards raising better awareness of the LDP process and improving the opportunities for you to get involved with creating the Plan.

To kick things off, we are:

1) Writing a communication plan.

69 people responded to our consultation survey. We found that the majority were over 65 and retired.

As result, we now know we must find better ways to:

2) Engage with the 16 – 54 age group.

47/69 respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that “I think that the Edinburgh Local Development Plan process was good“.

Because of this, we are working to understand:

3) Better ways to involve all community groups in the creation of our next LDP;

4) Your preferred method and frequency of update from us; and

5) How we can make it easier for you to comment on proposals and let you know how we use your comments.

What happens next?

We will keep you updated with the work we are doing to deliver the first LDP with a frequent series of blog posts.

Moving forward, these will begin to touch on preparing the next LDP – LDP 2.

A new Development Plan Scheme will be published in 2018 and will include details and dates of engagement activities that you can get involved in.

Reviewing the Edinburgh Design Guidance – your views

The Edinburgh Design Guidance is being reviewed and we’d like your comments on the proposed changes.

The revised draft guidance has a number of key changes including the Parking Standards (for new developments), advice on Build to Rent Housing and protected views to the Forth Bridge.

Have your say.

You can give us comments using the online survey, which also contains a link to the draft revised Guidance.

We are also holding two consultation workshops on the Design Guidance on Monday 15 May, in the City Chambers. If you would like to attend, please email us the following details to spatial.policy@edinburgh.gov.uk

name
contact details
organisation (where relevant), and
workshop preference – 15:30-17:00 or 18:00-17:30

Consultation on the guidance will close on 2 June 2017.

Building Standards update

Team areas

As part of changes to how we deliver the Building Standards service, teams have been reorganised in to new locality areas. The teams are now based on four geographic areas in place of the previous five and are shown on map below.

The area teams can be contacted on these email addresses:

We also have an interactive map on our website which will allow you to search for the relevant team.

eBuilding Standards

The launch of the new eBuilding Standards service in August this year has been a big success and September saw almost 60% of all building warrant applications being submitted electronically – double the amount from the same time last year.

We’re keen to continue this trend, so if you haven’t started using eDevelopment then why not give it a go – it’s a single log in and can be used for both planning and building warrant applications.

Building Standards – advice and guidance

Our Building Standards web pages have also been given an overhaul to include links to general building standard advice, forms, guidance and how to apply online.

A key part of this is that we now ask that enquiries are made using the downloadable form. This will help us get the right information we need to answer your enquiry and help us focus on the more complex projects.

For smaller scale projects, the Scottish Government have produced a useful guide if you are thinking of doing building work or home improvements. There is also advice on the Local Authority Building Standards Scotland website for both agents and homeowners.

Delays Processing Building Warrants

We appreciate that at the moment there is a delay of approximately 10 weeks for first reports to be issued but we are working to resolve this and recruitment is well underway to help deal with this issue. Please bear with us as we work through this.

eBuilding Standards launch – 24 August 2016

Changes to how Building Warrants are submitted

From 24 August 2016 building warrant applications can be submitted using the new national eBuilding Standards online service. This will allow building warrants and other related forms, such as amendment to warrants, start of work notices and completion certificates to be submitted electronically using this new service.

The new site will have a number of benefits, making the process of submitting applications simple, saving applicants and agents time and money whilst allowing us to start considering applications sooner.

From 24 August both ePlanning and eBuilding Standards will be accessed through the eDevelopment.scot home page – a new Scotland wide service. With a single login for both planning and build standards applications this will make accessing and submitting applications even easier. The service will also have the added benefit of allowing a number of users to work together, sharing plans online in a single application.

eBuilding Standards info flyer image — eBuilding Standards flyer

The service available on the Council’s existing Building Warrant website will be replaced by the new eDevelopment service. Over the next few weeks there will be changes to the existing service in preparation for the switch over. Our website has more details on how this change will be managed.

So for now, we’d recommend bookmarking the new site and putting the date in the diary.

We’ll provide reminders and updates through the blog and Twitter as we get nearer to the launch date.

New Year message

David Leslie, Acting Head of Planning and Building Standards

2014 was a busy year for the Planning and Building Standards service and this is showing no sign of letting up in 2015. A review of the service was completed by the end of October with the refreshed structure now in place and the new teams working with an area focus. We have retained some activities at a city wide level, including development planning (policy), built environment and place making, natural environment, service delivery and data management.

A number of significant applications for the City were handled by the service last year including the Craighouse Campus, the New Waverley proposals now underway at East Market Street and New Street (see photographs), and proposals for the redevelopment of the canal side area at Fountainbridge.

These brought with them a number of challenges but will in time bring benefits such as new homes, public spaces and employment.

The number of online applications is increasing with our 10,000^th online application received last year. This upward trend is continuing with online submissions reducing time and costs for both us and our customers.

The Local Development Plan continues to make progress and with over 2500 representations received on the Second Proposed Plan we are working hard to bring this to the stage of its examination this year. The next main issues report for the strategic development plan (SESPlan) is progressing and will be open to consultation later this year.

I’m confident that we can meet these challenges, continue to deliver a high quality service for all our customers and engage a wide range of people in how the city develops. With the Development Management Sub Committees and the Planning Committees due to be webcast in the next few months, there’s every opportunity to hear the discussion and watch the decision making process in action!

The success of the service was recognised with awards for our Edinburgh Design Guidance and commendations for the new developments at Advocate’s Close and Charlotte Square. We also maintained our Customer Service Excellence accreditation.

2015 will bring its own challenges, not least working within a constrained financial position. However, we’re already making progress with major applications for the St. James centre redevelopment, the former Royal High School, Edinburgh Marina, Granton Harbour and a number of housing developments across the city. Whilst these major developments are important to the city and the wider region, we continue to handle large numbers of applications for householder and local developments. All of this reinforces the role the service has in creating great places for people to live, work and visit.

The 100 Years of Planning in Edinburgh exhibition will continue its tour around the city. If you haven’t had a chance to see it it will be at a number of locations across the city until June this year.