How does planning work in National Parks?

Do National Parks prevent development?

National Parks seek to guide and manage change in the public interest, rather than to prevent it altogether. National Park Authorities bring together all relevant interests to agree and deliver a shared National Park Plan, hoping to set a good example for others to follow. They then actively promote types of development which are appropriate according to that Plan, particularly ones which bring environmental and social as well as economic benefits.

Done properly, a National Park planning function should be viewed as 'progressive and facilitating', not an added barrier to sustainable development.

There is no evidence that National Park Authorities are more restrictive than other planning authorities; for example, in 2016-18 Loch Lomond & the Trossachs NPA approved an average of 97% of planning applications against a Scottish average of 94%.

The town and country planning system operates in the same way in National Parks as elsewhere. However, the two existing Scottish National Parks operate different planning régimes. 

Both prepare the Local Development Plan which gives spatial expression to the ambitions set out in the National Park Plan. However, our two Scottish National Parks operate differently.

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority (NPA) is responsible for determining all planning applications in its area.

The Cairngorms NPA only determines those it assesses to be of particular importance to the National Park’s purposes. All planning applications are submitted to local planning authorities as normal, but the CNPA has powers to ‘call in’ some of them if it decides to do so.

To be effective, National Parks need to have planning powers to pursue some of their objectives and to give them standing and authority in the community. A unified system avoids confusion and duplication of effort. In England, several decades of experience in operating a variety of different arrangements eventually resulted in all National Parks being given both development planning and development management powers.

A third option to consider is the National Park producing the Local Development Plan and leaving decisions to local planning authorities based on the plan.