On behalf of SAS, I wrote recently to the Scottish Government’s PARD (Planning Architecure and Regeneration Directorate), which includes Scotland’s Chief Planner, about the ability of local authorities to unilaterally change planning conditions or not enforce a breach of a planning condition – which as we know are imposed on a planning permission supposedly to protect public amenity, health, ecology and the environment from the effects of a development.
This response (below) sadly gives no reassurance whatsoever.
Rewriting ‘model’ planning conditions by another Government department is simply window dressing if conditions are changed or not enforced as they are written and unaccountable local authorities are entitled to decide what is or is not in the public interest with no consequence.
Until the law is changed, planning conditions can give no meaningful reassurance to affected receptors (people!); they are simply discretionary.
Response from a student planner at PARD 01/09/2026:
Thank you for your email of 24 July 2026; we note the points you raise with interest.
We recognise the importance of effective planning enforcement in maintaining public confidence in the planning system. Planning conditions are attached to permissions where they are considered necessary to make a development acceptable in planning terms, and compliance with those conditions is an important aspect of the development management process.
Standard Onshore Wind Conditions for Section 36 consents in Scotland were published in February 2025. They set out a consistent framework of requirements attached to ministerial approvals for large onshore wind farms.
Their purpose is to ensure that developments are designed, constructed, operated and ultimately decommissioned in a way that protects the environment, local communities and infrastructure. The conditions translate the mitigation and commitments identified during the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) into legally enforceable obligations, covering areas such as site design, environmental protection, construction management, noise control, and safeguarding of aviation, ecology and water resources.
By using a standardised template that can be tailored to individual projects, the Scottish Government aims to improve consistency, transparency and efficiency in decision-making while ensuring that significant renewable energy developments are delivered responsibly and with clear accountability.
Conditions are attached to consents to mitigate potential impacts, including conditions relating to noise control and monitoring, to ensure that any operational effects are appropriately managed and that the health and wellbeing of local residents are safeguarded. Further details are set out in the determination letter, published on the Energy Consents Unit website.
With regard to planning applications submitted to planning authorities, the relevant authority can impose conditions on any grant of planning permission. It is for the authority to consider the need for any condition and set out their reasons for it in the decision notice.
While there are a range of enforcement powers available to planning authorities, the individual authorities have discretion in exercising these powers to remediate the breach proportionately to the scale and impact on amenity of the breach. However, authorities are under no legal obligation to take formal enforcement action against any particular breach where they consider it is not in the wider public interest to do so.
The Scottish Government’s role is to establish the legislative and policy framework within which planning authorities operate. While we do not have a direct role in individual enforcement matters, we regularly engage with planning authorities and other stakeholders on matters relating to the operation of the planning system, including planning enforcement. We are aware that this is an area of public interest.
We note the issues you have raised concerning the modification of approved schemes and the use of non-material variation procedures. Decisions on whether a particular change is capable of being treated as a non-material variation are matters for the planning authority, having regard to the relevant statutory provisions and the circumstances of the case.
I hope this response is helpful.
Comment from SAS – This only serves to confirm that whatever reassuring intention of planning conditions might be , “Their purpose is to ensure that developments are designed, constructed, operated and ultimately decommissioned in a way that protects the environment, local communities and infrastructure”., the reality is that any planning condition can lawfully be changed by a local authority without public consultation or notification and a local authority has absolute discretion in whether to enforce a breach of planning condition according to whether (without public consultation) it decides enforcement action is in the public interest.
Rewriting ‘model’ planning conditions is completely pointless if the root problem is that those conditions are not enforced or changed unilaterally for something that will suit the developer with no regard to the public or environment.
It is completely understandable that the public have no confidence that planning conditions will protect either their amenity, their health or the wider environment, and have lost confidence in Scotland’s planning system.
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