The UK Government has snubbed calls from environmental and community campaigners to review planning appeal rights across Scotland, following an official complaint to a top UN body.
In August 2022, the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, Planning Democracy, Friends of the Earth Scotland and RSPB Scotland submitted a formal complaint to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC), a UN body tasked with upholding environmental rights. The complaint was accepted by the committee, requiring the government to provide an official respond by 21 July 2023.
The complaint sets out why planning appeal rights in Scotland are not ‘fair’ and therefore in breach of the Aarhus Convention’s access to justice requirements. It points to a ruling by the ACCC in Northern Ireland concluding that a lack of equal rights was in breach of the Convention. Campaigners believe that the same applies to Scotland.
Currently, only applicants (usually developers) enjoy statutory appeal rights if their planning permission is refused. Members of the public do not enjoy equivalent rights to appeal if a development is approved, even if the development will negatively impact their health and environment, or if the decision-making process was flawed. The only option available to affected communities is to go to court via a judicial review in the Court of Session, which the Convention’s governing bodies have already ruled as ‘prohibitively expensive’.
The UK Government has now responded, arguing that the complaint is ‘without merit’, and the lack of equal rights of appeal for communities does not constitute a breach of Aarhus Convention. The ACCC will now consider what further steps are required, including the possibility of holding a committee hearing, before issuing a final ruling. Campaigners are awaiting the ACCC’s final decision before taking further action.
The complaint to the UN follows over a decade of civil society campaigning and the passage of two planning bills, neither of which addressed the issue. An amendment proposing to add equal rights of appeal to the 2019 Planning (Scotland) Act was voted down by Conservative and SNP MSPs, and Scotland’s Minister for Planning, Joe FizPatrick MSP, refused campaigners’ request for a meeting to discuss the complaint in advance of the Aarhus deadline.
Clare Symonds, Chair of Planning Democracy, said:
‘We are extremely disappointed in this response. It shows utter disrespect for the Government’s international commitments to public participation in environmental decisions that affect our future. This is particularly alarming at a time when Europe is burning under devastatingly high temperatures and other parts of the world are experiencing catastrophic floods.
The Scottish Government have said that they want people to “have trust and confidence that justice will be delivered in regard to all issues which can impact our lives,” and yet they persistently refuse to recognise that communities have zero power to seek justice over planning decisions that have significant impacts on the environment and climate that will affect lives for generations to come. No wonder there is so little trust and confidence in not only the Scottish Planning System but the Government’s promises to deliver justice and equality“.
Benji Brown, Policy & Advocacy Officer at the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, said:
‘The callous disregard our government shows towards its citizens is unforgiveable. Equal rights of appeal would make the planning system fairer and improve the quality of decision-making. The fact that our government is fighting tooth and nail to oppose such a commonsense reform suggests they are content to cast community concerns on the environment out the window.’
