The Housing Planning Centre, which will be operational in early 2025, will address reasons for delays, including hold-ups in making decisions on major developments, lengthy negotiations of section 75 agreements, funding issues or policy requirements to address issues such as flooding or biodiversity.

The new centre, which will be staffed and funded by the Scottish Government, will enable officials to work in collaboration with local authorities and industry partners with mutual consent.

It forms part of a series of actions announced by public finance minister Ivan McKee to help planning authorities speed up approvals, deliver more new homes and increase the number of planners. Three times more scholarships than current student scholarships will be provided to encourage more future planners and address staff shortages.

The announcement follows this week’s announcement statistics It shows that despite a 29% decrease in application volume, the average processing time for large housing applications increased to 60 weeks.

Outlining the actions to Parliament yesterday, Mr McKee said the new center would stimulate Scotland’s housing supply and support economic growth.

He added: “Planning did not create the housing emergency but it can help us find solutions to the challenges we face.

“The Scottish Government is focused on working with partner organizations to identify how our planning system can help deliver these solutions.

“This decisive and targeted action, based on evidence, will provide people with more homes and better places to live.”

Housing Planning Center, Hydrogen Planning Center Developments announced within the scope of the Government Program in September.

The 2025/26 scholarships will be available for postgraduate study at the Schools of Planning at the Universities of Heriot-Watt, Dundee or Glasgow. Access to internships and industry placements will also be facilitated by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).

House building body Homes for Scotland (HFS) said the “overdue” measures presented an opportunity for “tangible results over the next 12 months”.

HFS chief executive Jane Wood said: “Whilst this announcement is six months overdue in the context of the housing emergency, we welcome this announcement given the key role the planning system has to play in facilitating delivery to more homes than anyone else.” missions across Scotland and the need to be suitably equipped for it. It is clear that the Minister has clearly listened to the industry’s concerns and is taking steps to address them. We applaud him for doing so and committing to delivering tangible results over the next 12 months.

“Given the scale of the challenge we face, this will not be an easy task and there are clearly a lot of details that need to be addressed; for example, we do not recognize the figures referenced for the number of homes that have been granted planning permission but have not yet been granted.” built, and I would argue that they reflect neither the complexity of the numerous problems facing home builders nor the true nature of the housing emergency.

“But this is an opportunity for a positive reset and we are fully committed to working with stakeholders, including our colleagues at all levels of government and local planning authorities, to ensure homes that meet the needs of everyone living in Scotland can meet. Investing in our country using the ‘Team Scotland’ approach and planning system “The ambition to make this the UK’s most attractive region for business is both refreshing and invigorating and we will do our part to help achieve this.”

Specific measures announced by the Minister of Public Finance include the establishment of an additional Planning Center to support housing delivery and the halting of work on the introduction of an infrastructure tax; instead the focus is on improving the guidance on Section 75 planning agreements.

Regarding SME housebuilders and sites permitted by the minister but not taken forward, Ms Wood said: “We published a comprehensive package of advice to support SME housebuilders in June and a formal response to this package from the Department is expected from the Scottish Government and in August This will be followed by a roundtable meeting between members and the ministers of housing and public finance, so we believe that work in this area can progress quickly.

“On site shutdowns, we are already working with members to understand the reasons behind such instances and look forward to interrogating the Scottish Government datasets when published to assist with this.”

Propertymark’s head of policy and campaigns, Timothy Douglas, added: “Reforming Scotland’s planning system is key to making housing more affordable and will help build the capacity of local authorities through measures to create a new planning hub and by training additional planners to speed up planning applications .Build the homes Scotland needs.

“But as the minister has said, planning is not the only solution to unlocking more homes and solving the housing crisis in Scotland. Reviewing the taxes people pay when buying property, bringing more empty homes back into use through financial grant support, building more social homes, introducing tax incentives to encourage investment in the private rental sector and requiring local authorities to come up with a plan for retirement homes, and Encouraging people to right-size could also increase the supply of homes. Propertymark will continue to call for action in these areas.”