Glasgow City Council planning applications delay caused staffing issues

Concerns have been raised over the amount of time it is taking to process planning applications in Glasgow.

Glasgow has the second highest cost per planning application in Scotland, a report has found.

The local authority charges £12,259 while the Scottish average sits at £6,679 per application.

Despite this a backlog of cases is building up, leading to concerns about applications being dealt with in time, members of the city’s scrutiny committee heard.

During the meeting, councillor Ken Andrew, who chairs the planning committee, told fellow councillors that the council was struggling to recruit and maintain staff in their planning department.

Councillor Andrew also said that this was causing an increase in the amount of time it was taking to review applications.

There are two types of applications, local applications which can be anything from a shop front, a house extension or a change of property use of less than 5000 sq m of new floorspace and major or national application which is generally bigger than the thresholds already listed.

Local applications generally have a two month determination timescale and if discussions are going well the council can agree an extension for making a decision.

However, if there hasn’t been an agreement about an extension of time to determine then the applicant can submit an appeal called an appeal against non-determination.

Major or national applications generally have the same principles but the council has four months to reach an outcome before the applicant can appeal.

During a recent scrutiny committee councillor Ken Andrew explained some of the difficulties.

He said: “My understanding is that what has been happening in planning is that the planning team have struggled both to recruit and maintain staff.

“A decision was made to restructure how the planning function was managed to try and keep hold of the staff we had managed to recruit.

“What we have seen is this blip and this increase in the amount of time it has taken to get planning applications through and in front of the committee so it is an issue that is being managed.

“I am sure it will be interesting for the committee to get a better level of information than I am able to give you here.”