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All right. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Planning Committee. I just want to check -- also, I need my glasses so I can actually see the screen, but Councillor Staniforff, can I just check it? You can hear us online? >> Yes, I can hear you. Lovely. Thank you, Alex. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. A special welcome to Councillor Thornley, who's joining us for his Liberal Democrat Group Planning Committee. Very welcome. This meeting has been held in Dean of Guild Courtroom in the City Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh, and remotely by Microsoft Teams. It will be filmed for live and subsequent broadcast via the Council's website. The Council is a Data Controller under the Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018. We broadcast Council meetings to fill our public task obligation to enable members of the public to observe the democratic process. Data collected during this webcast will be retained in accordance with the Council's published policy. Members are reminded that the cameras are activated by the sound system and that they must switch on microphones when speaking and off when finished speaking. Taylor, can you take us to the Order of Business, please? >> Yeah. Thank you, convener. So item one on the agenda is the Order of Business. Version two of the meeting papers were published on the 18th of June, 2024. There has been one deputation request received on item 7.1, City Plan 2030 Report of Examination and Resolution to Adopt from Homes for Scotland if members agree to hear the deputation. >> Members agreed? Thank you. Thank you. Motions and amendments have been circulated electronically and are available to view by members of the public on the Council's website alongside the papers for this meeting. Members and officers joining remotely are reminded that you should mute your microphones when not speaking to reduce interference from background noise and that the chat function should be used to indicate to the convener that you wish to speak. Please label your comment question, contribution, point of order, et cetera. The chat function should not be used for any other purpose and all business should come through the convener. If members are planning to substitute for other members at any point, please make this clear to the convener by confirming who has left and who has joined the meeting and all votes will be taken by a show of hands. Just to note that as per Standing Order 22.16, each item is subject to a 40-minute time limit unless agreed by committee under the Order of Business. The convener has discretion to allow proceedings to continue beyond the time limit. So I do hopefully tend to stay to the 40-minute rule. I understand obviously for our item of city plan, we might go ever so slightly over on that depending on the questions. I'm quite comfortable with that, but we'll just sort of want to remain a bit sort of cognizance of time. But yes, thanks, Taylor. Thank you. In that case, we'll move on to section 2 of the agenda. At 2.1, we have declarations of interests. The Councillor's code of conduct requires members to publicly declare interests and items being considered at today's meeting. These interests can be financial or non-financial. Do members have anything they wish to declare? Nope, nothing to declare. Thank you. So we'll move on to section 3, which is deputations. At 3.1, we have a verbal deputation from Homes for Scotland in relation to item 7.1 on the agenda, which is the City Plan 2030 Report of Examination and Resolution to Adopt. If I could ask Andrew McNabb just to come down, please, and you'll have five minutes to make your deputation. Mr McNabb, please feel free when to start. You just press the button in the middle to get your microphone on, and then once you're finished, we'll take a question from each political group. So please start when you're ready. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time today, everybody. Thanks for having me. Homes for Scotland are providing this note that we provided to you previously and circulated to highlight concern that the examination report does not assist in the efforts to address the housing emergency recently declared, both at the national level and at the local authority level. In responding to the latter, we want to set out how the homebuilding industry can work with the council to deliver more homes under the provisions of City Plan 2030 if adopted. To give some background, the examination of the plan began prior to the City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish Government declaring housing emergencies and housing being recognised by the Scottish Government and as a national outcome. And it's accepted that the plan was made as a transition between the old and new systems under NPF 4 and will be amended to align with NPF 4, which was published after the council commenced reviewing the local development plan. However, given the updated context, we're concerned that the suggested early review of the LDP is insufficient to overcome both the emergencies that have been declared and the uncertainty regarding delivery of all allocated sites. Homes for Scotland, like the council, had sought a higher minimum all tenure land requirement to meet need and demand, and the Scottish Government reported within the examination report, however, reduced the matter by 5,136 homes and also removed the housing release policy that would have taken effect if there was an under delivery of new homes. We're concerned that this framework for determining planning applications could lead to fewer homes being built during a housing emergency. Action needs to be taken now to address the housing emergency and the lack of deliverable housing sites. The council's housing emergency action plan is welcomed. There's a positive step in addressing the emergency. However, we set out below some asks to ensure that we are all aligned in our objectives. What we would request, which together from HFS and its members, which together deliver the majority of the country's new homes, including affordable housing, requests that the council commit to holding a developer forum focused on housing delivery during the duration of city plan 2030. There is a keen understanding from our membership that we want to work collaboratively with the local authority on all matters on delivery. Part of that is also having a real good look at the housing land audit and deliverability within the next few years. From that housing delivery forum, we'd like to produce the council to use guidance on bringing forward unallocated windfall sites and give greater weight to policy 16C and MPF 4, which does allow this to happen in our view. There's an urgent need to build more all tenure homes and the planning system is at the heart of whether that can happen or not. Now, there are some unintended consequences of under delivery and the previous research by the Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government establishes for every 1% increase in supply, there's a 2% decrease in house prices, providing all else remains equal. The latest national records for Scotland figures in 2022 show that there are 261,000 dwellings in Edinburgh and applying that formula within the research means that the proposed reduction in the 10-year housing land requirement of 5,136 homes means the price of the average Edinburgh home, 310,910 will increase annually by around 12,300 more than it otherwise would have. This figure is around 710 per annum for the average rent based upon an average monthly cost of 1,481. In short, reduced supply increases demand and as a result, house prices making them less affordable. The recent cut in the affordable housing supply programme budget is disappointing and it also affects not just the affordable supply but the private supply as well and we're hearing that from some members. Sites with both private and affordable housing are being delayed for funding for the affordable development is not available and home builders are seeking to renegotiate the type of affordable homes being proposed. It is important that the home building industry and the council work together and I re-emphasise that work together, we all have to roll our sleeves up to ensure the timely delivery of new homes to address this potential unintended consequence of compounding affordability. During examination process, the council set it on a housing land requirement of 41,886 based on the council's perceived need and demand at the time. The reporter has however reduced this to 36,750 which aligns with the madler contained within NPF 4. The HLR was expected to exceed the madler by Scottish government and we urge the council to target delivery of an HLR of 40,288 in the forthcoming local housing strategy. The 42,88 figures the anticipated housing supply identified the report on is a more ambitious figure than suggested in the madler and more impactful when seeking to address the declared housing emergency. In principle, new additional LDP sites would be required especially when, as the reporter suggests, the council plan to review the LDP early which we would encourage. Mr McNab, you're coming close to your five minutes so if we could come close remarks please. Certainly. You will have all seen the note passed around so you can read that in full but potential solutions and conclusions coming onto that. To maximise potential brownfield sites to deliver homes, the council should produce guidance on these and we also think that really the focus should be on delivery and increasing the supply of homes for all tenures to slow house prices and rent inflation to deliver more all tenure homes which should be a priority both from the Scottish government and from the council. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Do we have questions from members for the deputation? No? Councillor Jones and Councillor Osler. Thank you, Convenor and thank you very much for your deputation. You say that you want to create a forum and that you want to maximise use of brownfield sites. How do you envisage that happening and how is the forum going to actually help that to happen? The key thing for the forum is just having a regular liaison and sitting around the table with relevant officers about what is happening with the brownfield sites. There was a lot of concern at the examination period and process about how deliverable some of these sites are in the long term. Actually in the short term you have a city plan 2030 and how many of these brownfield sites which are occupied by businesses and buildings can actually be delivered by 2030. That is more the point we are making about brownfield sites. But also where there is not a developer attached is what are the council doing to enable and make this happen. We are willing to sit around the table and see what can be done in that regard. On a regular basis as the plan goes through. Thank you. Councillor Osler. Thank you very much for coming today. Today is a very big day. My question relates to the fact, do you feel there isn't a good working relationship between the council and developers? Obviously we have produced a plan and I am a little confused by why we would need something in addition to that when we do consider windfall sites. If a windfall site does come up it is considered. I am just a little bit confused about what more a forum would produce that we don't have already. It is a fair point. I don't think it is necessarily a difficult relationship. I think there is a professional relationship between a number of people in the industry and the local authority and we recognise that the council offices have a very difficult job to do in terms of juggling priorities. I think it is a case of just being open and honest and having a regular forum where we can discuss the sites that are out there and propose these opportunity sites and what is happening with them. Is anything happening and are they going to deliver? It is more of a monitoring role which can happen more regularly than the existing housing land audit process does. That is more where I am coming from in terms of having a greater dialogue around things moving forward is what I would say and setting up a regular developer forum would be welcome, focused on housing if you ask me. Thank you. We have got Councillor Cameron and then Councillor Gardner. I have two questions. I will go with one for a start and see if Councillor Cameron wants to come in after the first one. It is a simple question. You talked about potential guidance for Brownfield sites. I know officers will be looking to refresh the urban design guidance. It might be interesting for them to hear what you would like to see in that guidance. I am sure your ears are open about how that guidance can develop. Thank you. I don't think there is any, I am not suggesting anything kind of groundbreaking, but understanding the Council's understanding of expectations around density, also how some of these Brownfield sites can be developed to the density thought, but also what we do with existing businesses on sites and how they are being managed. I think design is a key issue, how you fit in with the existing urban fabric. It is all important. There is nothing groundbreaking around design and development for sites. I think we would encourage the more information that the Council has to de-risk and for developers to know how things are expected to look would be better. Councillor Cameron. Thank you, convener. Sorry, I just swallowed some tablets. Good afternoon and thank you for coming to see us. I would like to follow up on what other colleagues have asked you around your proposals around a forum. Is this a place or a mechanism in which you could envisage discussions between City Council representatives, officers and perhaps elected members with your community around how to work in partnership around particular sites, particular areas, particularly those that are perhaps a bit tricky in terms of with a view not to do anything that doesn't add any value, but to focus on bringing forward sites to help us address our housing emergency. Is it something you see you hosting or Council hosting? Just a little bit more information. I think we would be open to discussions about how that might be, how often it might happen. I sit on the South East Scotland House Building Committee for Homestead Scotland and we would happily facilitate something with members and officers, if that would be the case, to talk around issues and talk around what's going on in the industry. I know sometimes you can feel these things can be a bit of a talking shop, but I think understanding each other's perspective is hugely important in moving forward to another plan, which hopefully won't be too far down the line. I would be open to discussion about how that might work and what it might look like, but Homestead Scotland would happily facilitate something in that regard. Okay, thanks very much, Councillor Gardner. I know you wanted to come in for a second question, but it would just be one per political group, just per the standing orders. Mr McNabb, thank you very much for coming along, taking questions from the committee. It's been very informative. Please feel free to stay in the public gallery if you want, or you can watch on the Council webcast and we record them for five years, so please watch whenever you want. Okay, thanks. Appreciate everyone's time. Thank you. Taylor Q, take us on to the next item, or do you want to check on anything before we move on? Yeah, just before we move on, can I just check, Councillor McNeese-Neeken or Councillor Cameron, do you have any declarations of interest? No. That's fine. No, thank you. So in that case, we'll move on to section 4, which is the minutes. At 4.1, we have the planning committee minute of the 24th of April, 2024, which is submitted for approval as a correct record. I believe Councillor Booth has a question. Thanks, Camille. Yeah, I believe there might be a wee typo in item 1B of the minutes. I believe the living rent deputation was in respect of the ASSC report, if that could be corrected, please. Yeah, no, that's fine, Councillor Booth. Thank you for letting us know. I'll correct that. That's fine. Apart from that, our committee agreed. Agreed. Lovely, thanks. Thank you. Move on to section 5 now, and at 5.1, we have the planning committee role and actions log, where a committee is asked to close the poll on actions, action 8 and action 9, and to otherwise note the remaining outstanding actions. Noted. Oh, Councillor Booth. Sorry, Camille and me again. Yeah, I think it's item 1 is a, there's going to be a briefing offered to councillors on the framework, and in particular, how planning addresses the nature of emergency. Apologies if I've missed it, but I'm not sure that that briefing has been offered yet. Do we have a timetable for that, please? Apologies. Yeah, that would certainly be before the Edinburgh design committee is brought forward to committee in September. Okay, that's it. Councillor Biffkin, anyone got Councillors? Thanks. In terms of item 13, it said that we're going to get a written briefing in July. Obviously, that's during recess when email inboxes are likely to be overflowing. I wonder unusually whether it might be better just to delay that until August. Yeah, I'm content to do that. But I don't know if other members are. Councillor Mout, you had your hand up. Councillor, I'll get, I know, but Councillor Mout, come and get Councillors. I'm just not sure we have time to delay all this stuff till August. You know, once we come back, it is just impossibly busy for many councillors. I just think if it's ready to go, it's ready to go and you should get it out. Councillor Osler? Yeah, I would concur. I mean, it's up to individuals if they choose not to read their emails during July. I actually use that period of time to go through stuff. I don't want, I've got a really, really busy August. And I do slightly worry if it's a delay to August, if there's a further delay on it, then what happens? I would rather if it's ready in July to go in July and then individuals can choose to read it or not. You know, it is then completely up to individuals to do that. So if it's ready to go, can we please just produce it? Okay, I think it's maybe agreed and it will stick to current times. Is it on this, Councillor Kerler? Yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah, I know that the council intends to have family-friendly policies and July is a time I have two children myself. Councillor, my fellow Councillor and Councillor Booth as well have children and that we devote our time to their wellbeing during that time. So I see no reason to delay it personally. I won't press it, Camino. Okay, well I think maybe as Mr Givens said as a compromise, how about we issue it in July and maybe reissue it and revisit it again in August when we're back into business. No, no. Oh my goodness, right, okay. Councillor Metz, I know we really are moving on from this. This isn't the most... I'm really sorry to press this point, but what has happened as we have tried to be more family-friendly is that we have compressed the business that everyone needs to get into into smaller windows outside recess. So for those of us who have a lot of committee meetings, which is actually anyone sitting on DM Sub, anyone sitting on the regulatory committees, anyone sitting on transport committee, because they meet more regularly, if you then say and we're going to crowd your inboxes as well over those times, we've agreed there's no meetings in July and in those recess periods. But I have always been told and Councillors have always said when we're talking about this, this doesn't mean we don't do any work. It's just we schedule it around because we don't need to be away from home. We can do things and we can do the reading around when we're doing childcare and other things. And I really think to say we're going to compress even more into those very busy periods does make it very, very difficult for everyone and for officers as well, who are also very busy. I mean, I think if the briefing's there and it's ready to go, it's up to us to manage our inboxes during that time. Okay, we're actually in July and we're moving with that. Councillor Osler, you had the question on another part of the... I do. It's a sort of ruling action to log next stages, the next three things on one go. And not surprisingly, it's about the conservation adaptation. It was obviously space to come to us in June. It's now not coming to us in June, but coming to us in September. And there was no reason why, you know, because I did ask this in June. I did ask this in the previous and I was told it would be coming in June. There's been no reason given why it's now bumped to September. I appreciate officers are busy, but I would just ask, as the author of the original, I would really appreciate it if somebody could have just told me because there are individual... But my second point is that if you then follow through, as I did last time, in our planning committee upcoming reports, it's not in September. So I am slightly worried that there isn't a connection between, you know, our sort of ruling actions logs our work programme. And then, you know, what's actually in our planning committee update because I would expect them to flow through. Yeah, so apologies for the lack of explanation. This work obviously relates to the guidance for conservation use and listed buildings. And that in itself has a relationship to the Edinburgh Design Guidance. We're now proposing to bring that to committee in September. And we want to bring that along with the guidance for householders, the Edinburgh Design Guidance, the guidance for householders and the guidance on conservation use and listed buildings all at the same time to make sure that they read across correctly and that members get to see that all in one go and that we're all consulting on it at the same time. So that's actually the underlying reason why this element has been put back to September. So apologies that we didn't make that clearer in this document. But it most certainly is the intention to bring that and I can see that the work programme isn't reflecting that at the moment. But that's what officers are working on at the moment and absolutely is the intention at this time. If I can come back, I was told this in June, it's already delayed. So I mean, I appreciate that and I know officers are really, really busy. But if it is geared towards September, please can we make sure it does come in September? And if it isn't going to come September, can we be informed prior to that that it's not coming? Yeah, we would certainly do that. Although what I would say is, it is very, very much the intention to get these reports to committee in September at this stage. Okay, any other council member? Councillor Cameron? Yeah, sorry, I'm a bit confused. Actually, it's also on this item, item five. The update is it says initial draft presented. The initial ask was to request that planning officers meet with the lead from each political group on planning committee to discuss and it's in its action column, it says a green group briefing was provided on the first of February. What I'm not sure is whether you were supposed is that did they ask for a special meeting was a special meeting offered to all political groups? Or was it meant to be a workshop? I'm a bit intrigued as to why one political group has been referenced and seems to have had a special briefing. If that came from them, then that's okay, fine. But I have to say, I have real issues about the way briefings are can be carried out in this council now as a way as how they used to be done when it would have been the norm that planning leads would, the planning head of planning would have met regularly with planning leads before a planning committee. In fact, that would have happened before all committees that the head of the lead officer would have met with individually. We've gone away from that. I want to know on what proviso was this? Was this offered specially or was this requested specially and why is this in the papers? I'd need to come back and clarify that but I'm seeing that Councillor Booth has his hand up. It was requested by our group. On the second point about our engagement with leads for each of the political groups, I'm happy to discuss that with leads of the groups about how you wish to engage with us in advance of committees and throughout the course of the working year. So if we're not getting things right as officers in terms of that engagement, I'm happy to look at that and see what we can do to better serve the needs of members. Is that okay, Councillor Merritt? It's a wider issue that what used to be the way that things used to work is that officers came to Councillors with things they needed to know and now that has been turned on its head and Councillors seem to be, the owner seems to be on Councillors to request what they need to know. They don't necessarily know that they need to know the information that officers have that unless we go and seek it out, we are seen to be deficient whereas before it was assumed that officers had large remits that might tell Councillors the things and I just think there's a disadvantage unless you have the time to pursue and constantly chapping on the door which I don't think is a particularly sufficient use of officer time to be perfectly honest. So it's a wider issue that we won't want to take further on. It's a much wider issue. No, that's fine. Take on board your comments, Councillor Cameron. Thanks, community. My question is on number 11 on responsible construction and I know there's a report coming back just not until next spring but I just wondered how often the working group had met and if issues are being, you know, how busy it is with concerns and issues, just to get a feel for how that's going. I think the group had met, sorry I need to see precisely what was said there, but I think the group had met two times before us bringing the report back to committee and the meetings that were had were very useful for us as officers to understand what the issues were and we're now in progress of putting in place those actions that resulted from that. Just very briefly, is this a place, a working group where if elected members are being contacted about issues about irresponsible construction within their wards can refer concerns to you or not? Just for clarity for responding to constituents? So I think that the work of the working group ceased. It was a short term working group and it's done and dusted effectively but the outcomes of that are now being incorporated into our actions and then we would then be returning to committee with an update on progress on that early next year. Sorry if I look dazed and confused because I am dazed and confused by it because if you've concluded a short term or whatever working group but you're not reporting us to spring next year, that's part of my confusion. Yeah, so just for clarity we did report back in, I can't remember which committee it was, it was earlier, April committee and then it was agreed that we would report back a further year after that on progress. No, no, no, it's okay. Any other questions from members on this, what has been a very lively ruling actions logs? It's not always like this, Councillor Fournley, don't worry, please stay on committee. With that committee members happy to agree the action log? Yes, that's fine, lovely. Taylor Q, swiftly move us on please. Thank you, convener. At 5.2 we have the planning committee work programme. Committee is asked to note the work programme. Noted, thank you. Thank you. Move on to section 6 now. At 6.1 we have the planning committee business bulletin and Ian McFarland will present the updates in the business bulletin. Thanks Taylor, thanks convener. So the business bulletin, we have five items, first of which is planning performance, you'll see the appendix which sets that out. What we'd note is performance is similar to the previous quarter, albeit what you're seeing here is this quarter so far up until May. You'll note that there is a rise in the number of short-term let decisions since committee in April. The next item is building standards performance which you'll see is holding up well in terms of the overall statistics. Planning appeals, we are providing a numerical summary for this quarter so far. Our next planning committee in September, once this quarter is complete, we'll give you the written summary of the appeals for this quarter. On the Seafield draft master plan, there's engagement taking place in June and July and there's an in-person meeting on the 22nd of June in Portobello Town Hall on that. And then the final matter is the George Cinema, so we've had an asbestos specialist visit the building and this has informed the level of personal protective equipment that's required for an inspection. So we're now working with the asbestos manager in the council to put that inspection in place for early summer and that will enable us to determine the extent, if any, of any deterioration of the building. Thank you for that update. Councillor Jones, question? Thank you very much, Convenor. I've got two questions but I'll always delay myself to the one to begin with on Seafield. I read the minutes of the last meeting of the Seafield Sounding Board. My concern here is that it is stated as a community engagement. Am I right in thinking that the community council in the ward, which is Dunlinson, Craig and Tinney, is not represented? And if that is the case, if this is going to be a true reflection of the community, then we need to take steps to ensure that there is a proper community engagement. So at the beginning of the work on Seafield, certainly all the surrounding community councils were involved. I think Craig and Tinney seem to have stepped back from it. However, the engagement events and the consultation online are available for them to participate in and there will obviously be in the future a formal consultation on a draft master plan and place brief that they can engage in as well. So they've certainly not been excluded from the process. It's a case of whether they're feeling they want to be involved or not at this stage. If I may just come back on that, please, Convenor. I fully appreciate that you have made this accessible to the community. But my understanding is that there is a problem with one of the community councils. It's not working, and it used to work very efficiently. I don't know what has gone wrong. But as I say, I do have very, very general concerns that we need to try and find a way of getting that community council. It's not up to us to get it going again, but we need to make sure that we're getting the views of that community that was represented. I don't think we are. I mean, certainly the events, the engagement and the consultation on it are being widely publicised, so there's no reason why that particular community can't be involved any more than any of the other communities. If there is an issue with the community council, that is unfortunate, but it doesn't stop individuals or other groups in the area picking up on it and being part of the process. As in when the community council becomes functional, then obviously we would welcome their involvement in it. Okay, we've got Councillor Osler, then Councillor Gardner. We can come back to your second question. Thank you very much. One thing I say is a positive to begin with. Really pleased to see that the tree issues are obviously massively reduced, which hopefully means that we got rid of some of our historic and our very old ones, which were taking a long time. My question there relates, though, to enforcement. I have to say I'm a little bit confused by the data that we've been given, and I'll explain why. If you have a look at the short-term lets and you look at numbers received 26, I'm just saying quarter one, for example, 24, 25. So number received is 26, closed 25, notices served nine, served in six months target four, percentage in target time 44. There's some very confusing figures here that I have to say that I'm a little bit confused by. I'm assuming that after the notice of the 44% refers to the four within the nine, but when we do actually know how many are outstanding being done, it just makes it a little bit hard to read. Yes. Officers are just taking a look. We'll just be one second. To explain this, so there's been, in the quarter, there's been cases that have been received, so those are fresh cases. It's unlikely that any of them will have gone to notice during that period. They might have done, but it's probably unlikely given the time scale it normally takes us on short-term lets. We'll have cases closed. Those cases closed will be cases where there's no action to be taken because there hasn't been material change of use or because there has been and the person has just unilaterally decided to cease their operations. Then we've got notices served, so the 44% represent the four out of the nine. That's where that number comes from, but if that's not clear, we can maybe just elaborate in our description a little bit just so it's clearer for future. It's more aligned in our applications. We obviously have a rolling application because obviously they don't all get dealt with within the same quarter, so there's no understanding of how many enforcement cases we have. It's outstanding what our totals are. It's not terribly clear from that because, as you said yourself, David, is that obviously just because we receive something within a period of time, it's not going to get settled within that time, whereas in our planning applications, we have a rolling log underneath. We could have a look at how we think about how we could do graphs because that might make it clearer. Is that what you were looking for in terms of you can see the data of numbers coming in, the average timescales and so on and do an equivalent for the enforcement? It's just having an understanding because, as you said, because they aren't decided in the same quarter they come in at. Do you see what I mean? It just makes it slightly unclear of how many we've got outstanding. We could certainly add in numbers of live enforcement investigations. I'm saying we could. I'm going to check and make sure that we can do that before we actually do it, but that should be possible and that would be another rule in those charts if that's helpful. I think it would be. Thank you, David. We've got Councillor Gardner. Yes, thank you. It was really on the Seafield thing and picking up on Councillor Jones' comments, which I agree with that it would be good to get some engagement in the Craig and Tinney Duddingstone ward. I appreciate there isn't a community council there, so I'm wondering if you can speak to teams that carry out consultations or something like that. There is an event held in Portobello Town Hall, I see, in the bulletin. Could a similar event be held somewhere, speak to perhaps the ward councillors? I'm sure council has asked and others will be happy to engage with you to see if there's a possibility of a similar event in the Craig and Tinney Duddingstone area. Is that effectively their coast that we're talking about? It would be really good to get their feedback. I appreciate you've done all you can, but it would be good to go that extra mile. I know it's a bit of an ask, but is that something you could look at, please? What I can do more immediately is check whether the officers are dealing with the engagement and get confirmation from them as to the extent of publicity in the Craig and Tinney area. They were working on mail drops and posters, et cetera, for libraries, community centres, that type of establishment, so as to ensure that all the communities were aware of that event. I can probably send through later today or tomorrow a list of the actions to publicise that engagement. If there's a feeling still that the communication with the Craig and Tinney area is not satisfactory compared with elsewhere, then I can discuss that with the team, including on the budget side of things, and see if we can do that. Let's first have a sense check of it in terms of the actions that have been taken in the run-up to Saturday, and then review whether further action is necessary. I'm going to take Councillor Mavic first, and then come in for your second question, Councillor Jones. Thank you. Just on the Craig and Tinney/Duddington, is there a way of looking at what we've received so far with engagement postcodes to check that we are hitting that area? I can add that to the questions to the team. I've got water. Are you OK, Councillor Mavic? Councillor Jones, your second question. Thank you, and it refers to the George Cinema. Just by way of introduction to my question, I have to say I'd be very low with even protective equipment to enter a building with asbestos, and that's me. Let me just ask the question, though. Asbestos is in the building. It's obviously highly dangerous. Is it the Council's policy not to sign that as asbestos, and why? Because to my mind, there should be a sign saying there's asbestos in this building, especially as it's a risk that children could get into the building. It's quite easy for them to do so. I'll take that up with the Council's asbestos manager. I understand that there are some signs on the building suggesting that access is prohibited, but I'll take that up with the asbestos manager as to what's appropriate, and if there's additional signage required we think should be put there, we will take that up with the owners of the building and their agent. Thank you. I actually have maybe a quick question on the George. I remember we gave the commitment, I think it was the last planning committee, that we sent out weekly updates to ward councillors and myself as convener. I haven't received any updates fairly recently, but I wanted to make sure at the very least that ward members are receiving weekly updates. Can we confirm what's going on there, please? Yes, I don't think it's quite weekly updates because the progress of what's happening isn't happening quite on a weekly basis, but we have been updating ward members as to what's happening, and in relation to this particular item, I think they've been made aware of what we've stated in the business bulletin, that there was this inspection being done by the asbestos specialist, or was happening with the asbestos specialist, and so as soon as we're further forward with the inspection to establish any deterioration, we'll obviously be informing ward members of that. Thanks, David. So I don't necessarily have an issue with that as such. I think, and I obviously don't want to create more work for officers, I think we do more than enough of that in the planning committee, but I think it still might be worthwhile, even a very short email once a week, just to say, just checking in, there's no update but you know where we are just in case we can help. Again, if ward councillors would find that helpful, I think it would just maybe be helpful. But anyway, if Councillor, unless you want to comment on that, I see Councillor Stanislaw would like to comment. Just one second. Yeah, I'm just conscious it's a fast approaching holiday season, so if we could agree to do that subject to availability of officers to provide those updates, because there's no point in that, an officer that's not really involved in providing an update that doesn't really particularly say anything. That's fine, David. Thank you, I'm happy with that. Councillor Stanislaw, have you got a question? Well, actually, Convenor, I just wanted to come in on Seafield as a ward councillor, as a lot of questions have been asked about it. Craig and Tinney Community Council were on the sounding board until very recently when they've had problems. The only councillors on the sounding board for it are councillors from Craig and Tinney and Duddington, so I do feel like the Craig and Tinney community has so far had input into the Seafield Master Plan. I do find it a little bit odd that the consultation is happening at Portobello Town Hall, given all that, and given that there has been recognition that it mostly affects Craig and Tinney, but nevertheless, so far I think consultation has been good with the community there, that they are aware of the consultation happening at Portobello Town Hall, and so I just wanted to put people's minds at rest that I think there has been engagement with the immediate local community that it affects, and that it hasn't focused on Portobello or anything like that. OK, that is reassuring. Thank you, Councillor Stanislaw. I wouldn't normally tell you off because that isn't a question, but I'll let that one off there for a second. Does anyone else have any questions? No. OK, that's fine. Are we happy to note the business bulletin then? OK, thank you. Thank you, and in that case we'll move on to section 7 of the agenda, which is planning policy. At 7.1, we have the City Plan 2030 Report of Examination and Resolution to Adopt. It's a report by the Executive Director of Place. There's been a Conservative Sorry Group addendum and a Green Group amendment circulated on this item, and I'll pass over to Ian Macfarlane, who will speak to the report. Thank you. The report, I think, I hope, is set out clearly in terms of what committee is here to do, what the main considerations are and what the relevant legislation in relation to those considerations, but obviously I'm happy to take any questions on that. A couple of points as we go in. Yesterday I asked committee services to circulate an update to the housing technical note due to an error in the figures. I hope everybody received that, but I'm happy to talk through that if any member is not aware of that. No? Everybody content they've seen that. So that update has a bearing on this report in that the update on the housing technical note, it has to be emphasised, doesn't affect the plan. It simply is around the housing technical note, but it does have a bearing on a figure in the report at paragraph 4.6.3 and the figure about halfway down at the end of the line, 55,400, should be amended to reflect the updated housing technical note, and that figure is 53,422. This came about as we discovered a little bit of double counting in where sites had been placed by the reporters and how that translated from housing land audits to the figures we were working with and then on to the housing technical note, so apologies for that. I hope the circulated update is sufficient to rectify that. One other comment on the recommendations. From a legal perspective, there is a view that where it refers in 1.1.4 to the Planning Etc. Scotland Act 2006, that should, and this is rather long so bear with me, refer to section 20 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 as amended by the Planning Etc. Scotland Act 2006 and the Planning Scotland Act 2019, so if it is agreeable, we will update that for the Council papers should the report be referred to Council. Other than that, I think the report sets out the recommendations clearly. I think in section 4, it sets out the parameters around the decision as to whether or not to accept the reporter's recommendations and the actions that would then follow from that. There is commentary in the report on the key recommendations for change from the reporter and officer's consideration of why we feel they should be accepted. Again, happy to take questions on that. There is commentary in section 5 on the next steps and we can discuss that further as needs be. But to return to the recommendations, the purpose of today is to accept, I would hope from my perspective, the reporter recommendations to modify city plan as set out in the table of recommendations and as justified in the report of examination for a committee to endorse the modified city plan as its local development plan, to approve the covering letter to be submitted with the modified plan alongside the housing technical note, which gives clarity on the housing figures, and if recommendation 1.12 is approved, refer this to the Council for a decision as to whether or not the Council should adopt this as its local development plan. So I'm happy to take any questions on any of that. Okay. Thank you, Ian. Councillor Biff. Thanks, Camille. Thanks very much indeed to officers of the report and also for a lot of time recently to discuss various issues around it. Thank you. I have a question about the affordable housing and the reporter's insertion of the words should normally into policy how to, and the report notes that viability is a potential material consideration in this respect. Obviously we've had a number of applications recently at DM Sub asking for the affordable housing contribution to be changed to a commuted sum from an onsite contribution. So is there a risk if we accept the reporter's change of wording in this respect, is there a risk that we'll see applications coming forward with, you know, 15, 20% affordable housing and their argument being, well, it's simply not viable to produce anything more? The expectation would remain as far as officers are concerned that the 35% written into that policy will be the expectation on all applications. The reporter as well as introducing the words normally also introduces words about an open book approach to assessing viability. That is very strong in terms of giving the council the opportunity to robustly assess and consider any case on viability submitted. I don't think it will increase the instances where developers use a viability argument. I think they're well versed in their own interests, they're well versed in their own investment appraisals, they know what they're doing and they will look to comply with policy where possible and they will look to work or make a case for an alternative approach if they want to make a case for that alternative approach, we will need to see an open book approach. If we have that open book approach, the council in its decision making has the opportunity to assess that and consider it robustly and I think that's the important point along with the expectation would remain 35%. That would be what developers should aim for, it is what they should bring to us. If they see a circumstance in which they can't, they need to have a very, very clear and open case as to why not. Thanks for that explanation, that's helpful. In effect what we're saying is the target is 35%, if you can't meet that you need to have strong reasons why. Absolutely, that is the case at the moment with the 25% and if you can think about the way the planning system works and material considerations, viability has been a material consideration in many cases that planning development management subcommittee has considered over many years. Those cases we look for the developers to justify why there should be a departure. We've not had the ability to insist on an open book approach to that and the change, the further changes over and above the normally will give us the opportunity to do that and I think that's a real and significant improvement in terms of how the council can get information and assess information on these things because without that it's a little bit of a, it's difficult to assess without that, pure and simple. Thank you. Councillor Osler, then Councillor Gartner. Sorry, I'll just very briefly add if I can, which is one of the changes in that wording is just the statement, it's for the council to produce guidance or further guidance on this subject. It's certainly not a reference to national guidance in any way, shape or form. It puts it squarely in the control of planning committee to produce the guidance around what you consider to be acceptable in terms of viability cases. That is also probably a further welcome point in terms of what has been stated in that amendment. Thank you, Graham. Councillor Osler, then Councillor Gartner. Thank you very much, Ian. Thank you for the enormous quantity of work that's gone into this. It is quite a staggering document. Well done, everybody. My question is obviously about the opportunity sites. Obviously, the report has a slight difference of opinion than we did about deliverability towards the plan itself. We've had a number of sites taken out and a question over there, immediate deliverability versus medium term versus long term. We've heard obviously from the development side that there's a concern about, you know, having sufficient supply going forward. There was a request obviously for a forum to be set up, but I wanted to ask separately from whatever's decision made about that going forward is are we going to be having updates for us as a committee about where we stand with the opportunity sites? Because I do think it would be helpful from our point of view to have an understanding about where those sit, because we didn't look at it to begin with, you know, of there being sort of issues. So I just wondered if there will be a change going forward or whether we will get updates to how these sites are progressing towards development. Certainly. I mean, we produce annually a housing land audit, which will be one way of updating, but I think the hint in the deputation was towards more frequent meetings and discussions around deliverability, which in principle I absolutely welcome. I think the development planning system has long been bogged down in arguments about targets and housing land requirements. I think supply and delivery are far more important aspects. You know, our land supply, even with the adjustment from the housing technical note, is significant. The need and demand figure for the area is in the region of 27,000, 28,000 homes. The mathlor figure is 36,500 homes. That's with its 25% flexibility. The land supply is over 50,000 homes. So I appreciate there are differences of opinion about the deliverability of some of those sites. When you're doing a plan which is envisaged as a 10-year plan, notwithstanding we have to do a new one for 2008, you need a land supply that considers the long term as well as the short term. And the pace of brownfield development in Edinburgh has been increasing and increasing. And I think in the year of record completions or near record completions for Edinburgh of over 3,000 homes, brownfield contributed something like 70% of those homes. So significant in terms of supply. We can see in areas where sites in certain ownerships and certain uses have within a few years come into development as housing sites. And we've also seen a lot of brownfield sites go to student accommodation where in other eras they may well have been built out as housing. And part of the plan is to allocate sites for housing so that it's housing led mixed use development rather than student housing or student accommodation which is developed on those sites. So it makes the housing land supply less vulnerable to speculative developments and I think that's really important going forward. I think the opportunity sites to get back more directly to the question was a bit of a surprise for us. It's not a terminology normally found in a development plan. I'm pleased that the sites remain in the plan. I'm confident that whilst not all of them may come forward, some certainly will, we will as we have to in the next plan re-examine those sites and their deliverability. That's part of the new planning process that we have to provide for that in the evidence we submit through the next plan process. So they will be re-examined as to their deliverability at that stage and we will continue to work to produce, to assist delivery of this plan wherever we need to, whether that's through formal or informal approaches including the opportunity sites. Okay, we've got Councillor Gardner and then I see Councillor Staniforth. So I've got a couple of questions. So obviously I'll try and be brief with the first one and a reasonably brief response because it's a kind of particular area of it. So in answer to Councillor Booth, you talked about open book auditing and so on. So the plan or the intention of the plan has been published for a number of years and hopefully it may get adopted through the process starting today and so on. So I'm thinking about land values and do you consider that developers will have started to bake in 35% given that that's the direction that the Council has been trying to go down for some time and also going forward do you think that will strongly be baked into land values so that they may accommodate the 35% and we'll see that in open book auditing if there's a challenge to the 35%? Where there's changes to planning policy the nature of the planning system means they are flagged up with a lead in time. I would be rather astonished if developers were not at least considering the impacts of this plan on land values but for us it's about are there sites in the right places to do the right thing. Developers need to consider what the planning policies and proposals are for the areas they want to develop in. I think you know when we first started talking about this through the choices document back in 2019 I think late 2019 early 2020 developers were at times slightly unhappy perhaps with our approach but they've had time to work into that. You know the land and development industry is a very complex beast so it's difficult to give a one word answer to that but I would be very surprised if the flagging up of this from 2020 if not 2019 was not a consideration for anybody as a landowner as a developer or as a house builder. Did you have another question Councillor Gartner? We've got an amendment and we've got an addendum today so it's just to get a chance to hear the officer view on the amendment and does that pose particular risks for the plan going forward if we were to accept that today and on the addendum do you consider the wording of it adds to anything to what's in the report because I know the opportunity sites are covered in sections 4.65 to 4.68 and so it's just whether that wording improves on that or doesn't really add anything to it so thank you. Okay I'll take the amendment first. I think members consideration of it needs to hinge on their view as to the compatibility of those amendments with National Planning Framework because if we go back to section 4 of the report the grounds for declining to accept reporters recommendations are clearly set out and inconsistency or conflict with NPF4 is one of those grounds. Now the amendment considers that three of the reporters recommendations are inconsistent with NPF4 examining the case made for that. We are of the view that that's not the case. We are very strongly of the view that if you look at the detail of the policies in the plan and the amendments proposed after the recommendations proposed by the reporter it's quite clear that the reporter is considering National Planning Framework 4 and amending the policies to reflect National Planning Framework 4. It's bringing them into line with National Planning Framework 4. The plan was always largely consistent with NPF4 but it's no surprise there are some details there around particularly emissions and sustainable buildings and around the, sorry I've lost my train of thought slightly, there's the walkability in policy 16. So looking at the detail of those I think it's quite clear to officers that those changes reflect wording in National Planning Framework 4. For example the change to the sustainable buildings policy in relation to policy 1, policy 2 and policy 16 it's very much, it's very clear that the generality of policies 1 and 2 are reasons why the reporter recommends this and policy 2 in particular with its reference to as far as possible the reporters have used wording that is in essence the same meaning if not the same words. So they're bringing it into line with National Planning Framework 4. And I would say that when we've talked about sustainable buildings policy and other policies we have, I think officers have consistently said if it's ahead of national policy, if it would be perceived by developers as being more onerous than national policy then we will get drawn back on that. So these recommendations don't surprise me at all, they're specifically designed to bring it into line with NPF4. If they're not accepted it would go to ministers with those, with the amendment. Ministers could either change it back to what it was which is perhaps the most likely outcome or if they agree with us we would then take forward a plan for adoption on that basis with changes which in our view would conflict with the reasons, the competent reasons for declining to accept a recommendation in which case the grounds for legal challenge would be very strong. When ministers consider it they may take longer to consider it because of those amendments in which case it begins to risk or at least delay the opportunity to get that 35% affordable housing policy operating, to get the new student accommodation housing policy operating, to get the Brownfield site allocations which help to protect those sites for housing-led use rather than other speculative uses. I think that's really important and I could only recommend that the amendments are not accepted on that basis. I also asked Ian about the addendum from the Conservative group as well. Sorry, that was a very long answer to the point where I forgot where I was. The addendum, I do think that it is covered in the paragraphs you refer to but otherwise I don't have any issue with it. Okay, thank you very much. I think we've got Councillor Stanislaw, then Councillor Millett. Thank you, Convenor. Baked into this plan seems to be an assumption that Edinburgh Airport will be expanding and that the plan allows for that. How does that square with our local net zero ambitions, national net zero ambitions and indeed NPF4 which seems to argue for sustainability? Thanks, Councillor. I think I would say that the plan safeguards land that would enable expansion of the airport were that to be required. That's a long-standing safeguard. My understanding is that that would only be required at a point where the airport was having to deal or having to plan to deal with something like 30 million passengers and their predictions as I understand them is that that would be around 2045. The plan will obviously be reviewed for 2028 because we need to produce a new style plan for that. That issue can be reconsidered again at that stage. Ministers may well look at that aspect of it when it goes to them because they will be looking at the plan as a whole, not just the reporter's recommendations for changes. Ministers can issue directions to amend the plan. A, I would say we'll review it in a timescale that is long before the consideration of any expansion of the airport and B, ministers as guided by planning officials at the Scottish Government will be looking at every aspect of it, including that. The other thing to add just on the airport is that the airport does hold extensive permitted development rates which are provided by Scottish Government. There's lots of development that can happen there that the Council doesn't have control of. I think the amendments to the plan proposed by the reporter actually highlight that fact that it does have permitted development rates. Although I would add that that does not include permitted development rights to build a second runway. Just to make sure that's confirmed. Councillor Millett? Thank you, Galina. Just going through the plan in close detail, because the plan takes a certain amount of time to prepare. Things have changed that were written in the strategy documents of the plan which are now no longer the case. I'm thinking paragraph 2.7 where it refers to the Climate Change Scotland Act and the targets within that which have recently been resiled from. There's also, and I think the other sort of big factual error is about the AQMAs, which is at paragraph 2.7.8. It says there are five AQMAs in Edinburgh. Well, there aren't because the Invalet Thoreau one was revoked in March 2024. So there are what I would call factual errors that are sitting there in the strategy. So I don't know how we deal with that. Do we treat them as drafting errors? Because in some ways, they sort of set the scope for the strategy. They underlie some of the strategy and the direction that we're taking that have led to other decisions that we're taking. I'm sort of slightly uncomfortable with putting our names to a plan where there's one very factual error which is about the number of AQMAs. Then I think that's probably quite easy as a textual drafting error to replace that or stick a note in saying at the time of consultation, this was the situation. It has since changed. I'm more concerned about paragraph 2.7, which is like an underpinning paragraph and a lot of the targets referred to in that we don't know what they are at the time of publication because that's still to be debated by the Scottish Parliament about what's going to happen with this redrafting of these ambitions. That's a genuine question about how we've managed these things previously. So with the draft letter to ministers, there is a list of acknowledged errors or factual points that need correction. Some of those were sent to the reporters in our submission for examination. However, as there was no representations to some of them, the reporters were unable to address them. The point about AQMAs, we could certainly add to that list with committee's approval. The point about paragraph 2.7 would need a little bit more consideration to respond to, I think, because -- where's my proposed plan? Here it is. Let's just find that and -- 2.27. Just to clarify, was it paragraph 2.7 you were referring to? You're quite right. It was 2.7, yes. Thank you. I'll be slightly less confused now. So, yeah, I think we had a consideration about this because it's obviously in flux. And I think -- I mean, we -- I think the best thing to do with that is to acknowledge that to ministers. It may be in the document. I need to double check that again. But it may be in there as a change for the ministers to consider because we're certainly aware of it. It's just what do we do about it that's the issue. I think the AQMA point I wouldn't say was a drafting error. I think we should notify that to the ministers as part of that list. And with this, I think, if it's not on that list, we will add that to that list for their consideration and they can then direct us as they choose or as decisions of parliament allow. I think that where there to be reductions or changes to those targets, I would not envisage them being hugely significant to the point where they undermine the strategy and the purpose of the relevant policies of the plan. But that would be for ministers to consideration to consider as a consequential change. But I think that would be the mechanism to ensure that it's clear to ministers that they need to address those. Okay. We've got Councillor Booth and Councillor Gardner. Thanks. I mean, specifically on that point, I take Councillor Mount's point, but to be entirely accurate, ministers have announced that they're going to scrap the interim target for 2030, not the net zero target for 2045. But they haven't yet brought forward legislation to change that. So as of now, this statement is accurate. Although I would add, I think there might be a slight typo. The original climate change act was 2009, which was amended by the 2019 act. So there might be a wee typo there. But as of now, that statement is accurate. Sorry if I may. That typo is on the list. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Brilliant. Councillor Gardner. Thanks, convener. The next question is for Ian and David or whoever feels best to answer it or perhaps both. It was always good to hear from Homes for Scotland. They will undoubtedly help us deliver this plan. And I think you would welcome them being partners in this process. So it's really to get your view on the forum that they were talking about, where there's merit in something formal like that. And given that the plan is about 20 minute neighbourhoods and mixes of uses, whether that forum should include other potential partners of those mixed uses as well to try and get mixed use 20 minute neighbourhoods up and running kind of things. It would be very interesting to hear from Homes for Scotland, but also from other bodies that can help make this plan work. So I just would be interested to hear your views as officers. Thank you, convener. Certainly. I mean, I think I did acknowledge that I think delivery is important. I think that's hugely important. And we should get beyond given that we're talking about a significant land supply rather than one which is just above the math law or anything like that. I think, you know, there is -- there are significant opportunities for delivery here. We're very clear in the plan about how we want that to work. And certainly it makes sense that if we agree a basis for a forum, that that does include others in it because we need to build better places and we need to build sustainable places. That's what the plan is all about. And it's about that and it's about knitting bits of the city together that have kind of been broken off over the years. So I would certainly approach the constitution of such a forum with a very open mind about who should be in it, who needs to contribute to it, and how we then mediate that and work with that going forward. And I would hope Homes for Scotland would agree with that approach. I would just echo Ian's comments. I think engaging with Homes for Scotland and other stakeholders who've got an interest in housing delivery, I think, is going to be very important for us going forward. And as Ian has pointed out, the examination report does ask us further at the opportunity sites for the next plan. So that's what we'll be absolutely doing. And I think engagement with the industry and with other stakeholders would be beneficial. So I think us working out a way of doing that is something that we should do. I'm going to add a thumbs up for Mr. McNabb in the public gallery as well. Just to remind members, we've got about just over 10 minutes until we hit our 40-minute rule. Again, I'm a little bit flexible with that, but just to remind members. Councillor Booth, you had the question. Thanks, I could start with a wee comment if that's okay. As long as this stakeholder group is broader than just landholder and developer interests, I think it's important, for example, that we hear from the Edinburgh Poverty Commission, Living Rent, organisations that represent perhaps the Edinburgh Tenants Federation, organisations that are on the sharp end of the impact of the housing crisis on the city, I think that would be helpful. My question was specifically about policy ENV 8 and sustainable buildings. Obviously the reporter has rewritten that to remove the original wording was fairly unequivocal that developments must achieve a net zero level of operational greenhouse gas emissions. The new version is very much more caveated. Can you just clarify how that will work in practice? Will there be an assumption, as in very similar to the sort of affordable housing approach, will there be an assumption that developments should be net zero and if they want to come forward with something that isn't net zero, they have to provide the evidence on why they feel that that is not achievable? Just in terms of what you said about the forum, I completely agree. I mean, I think if we're talking about delivery, we know that a huge amount of delivery needed is about housing need rather than housing demand, so it needs to be a mixed approach. In terms of that policy, I think it's clear the way it's now written, if less equivocal, I think we need to work with our colleagues in building standards to better understand or use their advice as input to applications to understand what is reasonably practicable for each case and take it on a case-by-case basis. Clearly, the way for any developer to ensure they get a quick and easy decision on that point would be to go for net zero. If they feel there are obstacles to that, you know, if, for example, they are in an area where it's feasible to connect to a heat network but that heat network is not at the moment decarbonised, then would we want to say to them don't connect to that? It's, you know, sometimes there will be choices to be made in that respect because it may be easier to decarbonise that heat network than to decarbonise X number of homes at a later date or through the immediate process. So I think we have to have a reasonably open mind to that in terms of where something's located, what it's located near to in terms of potential sources or resources, and I think we will, you know, we will use that policy to push things as hard as we can in conjunction with advice from colleagues in building standards. The other thing to add to this is that we will be bringing forward the Edinburgh design guidance and it will look at this, explore this aspect, so that will be before committee in September. Okay, thank you very much. Any other questions for the moment? Councillor Booth? So I can hear one final question. Just in terms of, you answered Councillor Gardner's question about the implication of the Green Amendment. Can you just go into a wee bit more detail? You mentioned that it's possibly, if the amendment is agreed, could potentially lead to delays in terms of the Scottish Government. Can you just clarify if we don't make any changes to what the reporter recommends? What's the timetable for the Scottish Government turning it around and what is your estimate of how long it would be if the amendment is agreed? That's a question that is quite difficult to be precise about, as you'll appreciate. I think the, as you know, the ministers have 28 days from our submission to get back to us, but they can extend that by letter, by direction, to whatever period they see fit, as we've seen sometimes with planning applications. I think if the plan goes forward to the ministers with all the reporters' recommendations accepted, as we've recommended, then it will certainly minimise the time ministers will take to deal with it. They, you know, we've been liaising with officers in Victoria Quay, planning officers in Victoria Quay. They know our thoughts on the plan, they know our thoughts on the recommendations, and they know we are anxious to get this plan through as soon as possible. We are of the view that this is a plan which can deliver NPF4 and probably the first plan that can really deliver for NPF4, and whilst there are many good things about NPF4, it needs LDPs to deliver the results on the ground. So, you know, we're saying to ministers very much that is the case. If we accept the recommendations, they will be able to deal with it, I think, in the minimum time that they can. If we introduce additional change or don't accept all the recommendations, they will have to consider the procedural elements of that as well as the substantive elements of that in their recommendations, and I would not recommend adding to the burden of the ministers' considerations. We've had some cases that have been with them for a long time. We don't want to complicate it. Obviously, the decision is in the hands of members, but the only recommendation I could make is that we feel it all is designed to bring it into further compliance with NPF4. The NPF4 is the government's – I hate to use the term blueprint because it's in the evening news a lot, but it's their vision for how the country should develop, and the LDP is something which supports its objectives, so they should be able to deal with it as quickly as possible, but it is a bit of a how long is the piece of string question in a sense. I think it's probably unlikely to come back within the 28 days, but I would hope it would be within two to three months at maximum. Okay, thank you very much. Five, four minutes until our 40-minute rule is up, and I don't see any other questions. Members of staff need a comfort and bathroom break, and I think it's only appropriate seeing you be gone for an hour and a half, so I say let's pause until 3.40, and it gives members just a quick chance to chat if we want to discuss anything of course to the amendment. So we'll break for 15 minutes. All right, good afternoon, committee. Before we get started, I think, Councillor Gardner, you wanted to raise something? Yeah, I'd just like to make a transparency statement. It's a non-financial interest that I am on the board of Westerhale's Land and Property, who have sites in City Plan 2030. Thank you. Okay, thanks very much, Councillor Gardner. Right, I don't think there was any other questions, and we're hitting the 40-minute time limit, so with that, I'll move the report. Just to once again thank Ian, thank Linole, all the officers that have worked on this report, and City Plan. I remember the day when we received the outcome of the City Plan examination, and I think all of us, and particularly Ian, were quite nervous what the outcome might be, but the result we received in large part was confirmation that the vast majority of our policies on City Plan remains, and there was only a low level of change that was required, which we're obviously discussing today. But what did we keep? We kept good policies on housing, with a plan of over 50,000 new homes, new brownfield allocations. 35% of those are affordable, unless there is a good reason to do so, which we confirmed today. Some decent progression on climate policies, and progression on issues that I know cause a lot of tension in our communities, things like instant accommodation, for example. There's a lot we can point to on the City Plan. It's been solid progress that aligns with MPA4, that aligns with our Council business plan, and indeed a lot of the manifestos represented that committee today that the public voted for us to implement. There is, I think, a question that's come out of this process, and for me that's the relationship between local government and Scottish government, how we create and align our local development plans alongside our planning framework, and what the Council's role should be in this process. And that's why I'll once again send another letter, as we've become very familiar with, to speak and engage with the Scottish government, so I'm able to put forward Edinburgh's case, so we can talk about the future of planning in terms of our local development plans, our chronic need for more affordable homes, and a serious conversation around other topics that are not relevant but are important to the debate. I think for me this plan is a good one, it is a solid plan, but for me it's very important not to have sort of a triumphant victory lap. We've heard concerns from members of the public, from Homes for Scotland raised some interesting and valid points, so I understand that not everyone will agree with it, I know there will be members of the committee who don't necessarily agree with the LDP, but I think we have to respect each other's views and then think to the future in terms of City Plan 2040. But we're not getting on to City Plan 2040 yet, we've still got a lot to deal with here today, so I think let's just stay focused and remember what we can and can't do with this part of the process, but with that I'll move the report and ask Councillor Cameron to second. Thank you very much, I will second you and use my time and remarks just to say a couple of things. First of all, in order to deliver not just the housing provision but everything that's set out in the plan, it's going to require effort and coordination and alignment as you mentioned yourself between tiers of government and also partnership, not partnership but working with our development investment community and yes, it's been some time since we embarked on this process and I'm sure others would concur with us that as we follow this plan, the pressures on our population, our city facilities will continue to grow and therefore we need not just the cooperation, we need resources. I would like to see, for example, resources, better resources for our planning service so that they can respond and support and enforce where necessary what they need to do in terms of making this plan happen and to act in the best interests of the city and its population and also to provide a service to those who are seeking to come in and submit applications for consideration so that we can build the homes, the business base, everything that this plan encompasses. So, this is, I suppose, a milestone. We've taken a long time to get here but we're also embarking on another process. So, with those few remarks, convener, I second it and I'm prepared to be surprised that we can deliver or at least catch up with delivering the housing we need to in the time period that this plan will be effective from. I'm prepared to be surprised but equally I'm prepared to put in every effort as a member of this committee to be supportive, constructive and work with fellow committee members and our officers and the development community out there to meet the needs, the housing needs and all the other needs that this plan will address going forward. So, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Cameron. I very much agree with your contribution. Now, to move the Green Group Amendment, we have Councillor Booth. Thanks, convener. Having listened very carefully to officers and reflected on what they said, I've decided to withdraw the Green Amendment. I would like to say a few words if I may. Should I do that later or now? Feel free to do it now, Councillor. Okay, thanks very much indeed. So, yes, I mean, I think having listened to officers that the grounds for legal challenge if the amendment is passed are very strong and having listened to concerns about the timetable and while I think as Greens we feel that the plan will go further, we acknowledge that it does take significant steps forward, in particular 35% affordable housing. It does take steps forward in terms of, you know, the purpose built student accommodation policy is considerably stronger than the current plan and I think to potentially put that at risk through our amendment, I've decided that the best thing would be to withdraw. As I mentioned, we do still have concerns about some elements of the plan not being as strong. I think the planning system, this is a significant step forward and I want to acknowledge the amount of work that officers have put into this over many years. This is a significant step forward in the planning system addressing poverty and the climate crisis, but I do think there is still more that we can do and as Greens we will continue to press that and I reserve the right to bring a different amendment when the matter comes to full council. With that, I want to thank officers and withdraw our amendment. Thank you, Councillor Booth. We don't need you to second at the moment, but feel free to come in for a contribution when we reach that time. So, to move Conservative group addendum, Councillor Millett. Thank you, Convenor. Yes, I think you said in your introduction that not everyone on the committee was a huge fan of this plan and I have to say that as we have moved through the lengthy process, I have taken the opportunities at the appropriate time to note my dissent from this plan. However, there is a very clear statutory process surrounding local plans and I appreciate where we are, that we are at the end of that process and we now have a plan that has been assessed, sent out to the reporter. We have had the reporter's report back and now it is to take it on to ministers and that any amendments, significant amendments at this time, would leave us open to challenge. So, I respect that process and I don't want to delay it any further because we have been a long time in getting here. I still maintain my concerns about this plan. When I was reading through it again and in context with MPF4, I'm not sure that those two documents together really will deliver the growth that the city needs, which is the growth that actually is what challenges and alleviates poverty. However, the good thing about this plan, and this comes to the nub and the meat of my amendment, is that this is actually only a four-year plan because of where we are in the process that we have to transform. It's a transitional plan between the gap in our last local development plan and the new style plans, which is mandated that we must have in place by May 2028. Now, why I have prepared an amendment, and Councillor Gardner is completely right in his assessment that this is covered in the report, we will not approve this today. That decision is reserved to full council, but I do think it is worth drawing to the attention of everyone at full council, those councillors who are not as close to the process as those of us on the planning committee are, that we are in this transitional phase, that we will have to start the preparation of a new plan. And also, what has been done with the opportunity sites, which seems to me a finessing move on the part of the reporter, that having noted that these were certainly not deliverable within the four years that the life of this plan will have to run, and possibly not over the wider term, rather than remove them, he has allowed us to leave them in so we don't crash our MAFLA, and allows this plan to go forward on a provisional basis. I think it is important to say that. I don't know if it would be helpful in light of what we said earlier to put in another addendum sentence saying further in the letter to ministers to add an amendment to amend paragraph 2.78 of the proposed plan to note that the in-belief AQMA was revoked in March 2024, and that there are now five AQMAs in the city rather than six, which is just a technical drafting. And I don't know if it is helpful to have that just as a formal addendum from the committee. I can email that to anyone who needs it. Because we are going to have to make that addendum to the letter to ministers anyway, I think is the outcome of that. So I move this amendment, this addendum, which doesn't seek to change anything, doesn't seek to delay anything, it just seeks to draw attention to what I think is a very important aspect of what we are doing. This committee is aware of it. Full council, when we take this decision, I think will be less so about the transitional nature of the plan. I so move. Okay, thank you. And I believe officers are quite comfortable with that verbal addition to your addendum. Second, Councillor Jones? Thank you, Canvina. As a relatively new councillor, having elected just over two years ago, I was very new to the city plan. I had a lot of catching up to do. And I concur with Councillor Merritt and the comments that she's made. Having read the city plan in detail now, there are aspects of it that I would not have, I disagree with, but this is not the time, the pace to air those views. So I'm very happy to second Councillor Merritt's addendum and all the things that she has said in her comments. Thank you, Councillor Jones. So just before we move on to comments, I just want to check committee services. Can you please remind me what I need to check actually? That's terrible. I'm sorry. Let's just check if there's any contrary positions. Councillor Gardner? Yeah. Are you accepting the amendment and the addendum? I'm unclear. So, yeah, I'll be accepting the Conservative addendum when Council withdraws these amendments. I'll be moving the report in the Conservative addendum. So we have a contrary position that we're glad that the Greens are withdrawing their amendment because it did put the plan at risk, although I could see where they were coming from, but that's off the table. So I don't need to, at this stage, discuss that. And with the Conservative addendum, it's covered in 4.65 to 4.68. So I just, I know that the SNP group is being very well briefed. Thank the officers for that on city plans. So I don't think there's any need for it. And I think the way 4.65 to 4.68 have been drafted are very clear and well drafted. So I just, I don't feel a need for it. That's all. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Councillor Gardner. Do you have a seconder, Councillor Matusquello? Formerly. Okay, that's fine. Move on to contributions from members. Councillor Osler? Thank you very much. Many of us have worked on this for years and obviously I'd like to thank officers and also fellow committee members as well to bring this plan forward. There's a lot in this that liberal Democrats massively support. The fact this is Brownfield led, the fact that we're not using additional parts of our greenbelt, the fact we're respecting that division between the two is fundamentally important. The fact that we're increasing obviously our affordable housing provision is also vital as well as obviously taking into consideration that in a lot of our more congested parts of our city, resourcing is tight. So this allows for other areas to be developed properly and also new resourcing to be put into those areas. So improvements to schools and there's also with our desire obviously to move forward into 20 minute neighbourhoods, there's an awful lot within this plan that has been worked on quite extensively that will actually be benefit to existing residents, which is fundamentally important so that there will be less in the way of things being imposed upon them and part more in the way of actually a more of an organic neighbourhood being developed, which I think is very commendable with the addition of increasing in wider parkland areas and so on and allotments and a lot of other things that went in. I'd also like to point out that a lot of work has been done also on things like flooding, flood mitigation and other factors which are fundamentally important. I would like though to point out to committee that we have, if this plan goes ahead and we do get agreement on it, when it comes to DMSUB, we're going to be looking at applications which are going to be increasing density, are going to be more mixed led and so on, so there will be a change what's put in front of us. So again, that is something that we're all going to have to think about when it comes in front of us in terms of committee, because this is what we have asked for. So thank you very much. With that, the Liberal Democrats will obviously be supporting the position put forward obviously by the Labour and accepting the Conservative addendum. Thank you, Councillor Osler. We've got Councillor Stanifer for a contribution. Thank you. I'd like to say that while officers and councillors have done a lot of good work on this and I think that overall it is an improvement on the current local development plan, especially on the points that have been raised about social housing and PBSA, it's an ongoing frustration with planning. I think in this process and in the process of considering planning applications, that an unelected Scottish reporter effectively outranks elected councillors. I think the planning system in general would be better and more democratic if that were not the case. I know from correspondence I've had with constituents that many people feel the same way, that it is not fair that an unelected body has more power than local councillors over local planning. And I do hope that these frustrations will eventually lead to the sensible decision of the Scottish reporter being abolished. Thank you. Thank you for that, Councillor Stanifer. Okay, moving on. Any other contributions from members? I do not think so. Okay, in terms of my right of reply, as I've said, the moving report, I appreciate Councillor Booth brought forward the Green Amendment to highlight some important issues and key milestones of the plan. I think we've given the plan and the officers a polite grilling today and we've gone through that process and I think Councillor Booth was right to withdraw the amendment because we do have more certainty around it. I will be also accepting the Conservative addendum. I take on Councillor Gardner's point that from my understanding and addendum, it's not framed to sort of change anything as such, but to raise awareness around two important points. Yes, we're discussing City Plan 2030, but we'll need to get a move on with City Plan 2040. We've only got 2028 to do that and around opportunity sites. I do slightly disagree with Councillor Miller. I think they are opportunity sites. We shouldn't disregard them or think anything less of them and it is obviously our ambition to get these sites used, but there are certain constraints around them. With those comments, I'll be moving the report, Conservative addendum. Councillor Gardner, are you still wishing to pursue your amendment? Yes, I do. Okay, that's fine. Taylor, can you take us to vote, please? Yes, that's no problem. Thank you, conveners. In that case, there are two positions. We have the motion by Councillor Dalglish, seconded by Councillor Caminan, which is to move the report recommendations with the Conservative group addendum as verbally adjusted. We have the amendment by Councillor Gardner, seconded by Councillor Matos-Coelho, which is to move the report recommendations as circulated. Can I have votes for the motion, please, by Councillor Dalglish? Thank you, and can I have votes for the amendment by Councillor Gardner, please? Thank you. That is eight votes for the motion and three votes for the amendment, so the motion is carried. Okay, thank you, members. I don't think we need a break because we just had one recently. Can we move on to 8.1, please? Thank you, conveners. In that case, we will move on to section 8 on the agenda, which is planning process. At 8.1, we have the update on strategic housing investment plan for 2024-2028-2029, which is a referral from the Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee. Alex Blyth will speak to the report. Good afternoon, Alex. Over to you. Thanks, convener. I will give a quick update on this report and then happy to answer any questions. The Scottish Government had published resource planning assumptions in 2021. Those set out anticipated grant funding levels for affordable housing for each local authority area for the years 2021-2026. There has been a 24% reduction in affordable housing grant funding from the Scottish Government compared to those resource planning assumptions in 2024-25. Edinburgh's allocation has been reduced from £45.2 million down to £34.2 million, so an £11 million cut. This cut in funding was unexpected and impacts Edinburgh's affordable housing policy, our affordable housing supply programme, the Council's own house building programme and the HRA business plan. This report sets out that Edinburgh is unlikely to be able to approve any new grant funded affordable homes this year. That's based on the current grant funding commitments for already approved affordable housing projects and because there's uncertainty in the Scottish Government's affordable housing supply programme 2025-26 budget. The report has been referred to Planning Committee to request that it considers the use of affordable housing community sums on a city-like basis where individual legal agreements do not restrict this. Thanks. Thank you very much Alex. Questions? We've got Councillor Milne, Councillor Booth, Councillor Jones. Thanks, thanks Kavina. I suppose the first question is do we know how many of our legal agreements that have been drafted would permit us to use city-wide commuted sums because I think most of them, the ones that come in front of us, always seem to have the condition on in a neighbouring ward, in the same ward or a neighbouring ward. So do we have an assessment of how many homes, so I suppose how many of those agreements would permit city-wide commuted to be used city-wide rather than with a restriction and how much that would be? So we are in the process of reviewing those legal agreements. There are a number of legal agreements. My understanding is that the majority of legal agreements don't feature that restriction, so that's something that was set out in our affordable housing policy but I'm not sure that that's reflected or has been reflected in recent legal agreements and recent section 75 agreements. It is still the way that we allocate commuted sums for uses on a similar adjacent ward basis. Commuted sums are reported to planning committee on an annual basis and the reason that we're referring this report is to highlight that we want to do something slightly different this year because we have this enormous funding gap, we're looking for that flexibility to use them out with same adjacent ward basis. If you're doing that work, can you tell us when that work will be completed and do we have a figure of how much is in the commuted sums pot overall at the moment? Sure, so we expect that work will be completed over the next month or so and there will be an update report that's going to be presented to the housing committee on use of commuted sums alongside the affordable housing supply programme and that is tabled in for the August housing, homelessness and fair work committee. That report would also be referred to planning committee. In terms of the amount of commuted sums, I think we reported this last in our June 2023 HP report. I would need to have a look at that report to see what the total amount is but I think from memory it was about £2.6 million that had been received and we'd used about £500,000 but I could check that. Thank you. Thank you. We've got Councillor Booth. Thanks Camilla. So my understanding is that the clause that, notwithstanding I think Alex you've explained this clause is not actually in the legal agreement but it is, as Councillor Maillat said, in the report when it comes to committee which is that commuted sums should be spent in that ward or a neighbouring ward. My understanding is that that's historical from pre-2007 when obviously the wards were not multi-member wards and were therefore a lot smaller. So the geographical area in which they could be spent at that time was actually far narrower than it is at the moment. So if we're further watering it down by saying that we can spend it anywhere in the city, is there not a risk then that we find there are some areas of the city where there's an absolute dearth of affordable housing? That's a very good question Councillor Booth. So I think there will always be areas where it's more difficult to bring forward affordable housing and so the city centre ward is probably the ward that first springs to mind when we talk about how difficult it is to bring forward affordable housing. What we're looking to do by moving around commuted sums though is to bring forward or have the potential to bring forward a programme of affordable housing approvals in this current financial year which we wouldn't be able to do unless we found some additional funding. Is there a risk that there will be some worse where there's not affordable housing being provided? I think the risk from that is slightly separate and that's in terms of areas that become available for housing use and certainly that's the issue in the city centre ward in particular where there's very few applications that come forward that are for housing use and where they do come forward they tend to be fairly small scale and don't produce the kind of volume that mean that affordable housing policy would apply. Okay thank you. Councillor Jones. Thank you, actually my questions were pre-empted by Councillor Maurer but I just want to tease out something further. The deficit you say we have is 11 million pounds which is obviously very large and you're saying that it's possible that in the pot maybe 2 million of which only per cent of that can be used. It's not really going to make a huge difference is it? Thanks, it's one of a few measures that we're looking at to help get us through this year where funding's very very tightly restricted. So the other thing we're looking at is working with our RSL partners to re-profile their finance so that they're bringing forward private borrowing first with affordable housing grant funding being used later in the programme so that helps to tide us over for this year. That's not a solution that works on a rolling basis but we think the combination of that, of looking to Scottish Government for any additional funding that's able to come forward, we don't know what will happen post general election or there will be any further finance that becomes available after the general election. The Community Songs funding, re-profile finance, any additional funds that can be brought forward. That's what we're looking at. Community Songs is a part of that. If I could just follow up, if I understood you correctly, you're saying that you might go back to the Scottish Government and actually ask them to, well not completely reverse the decision, but ask them for more money. We're actively doing that anyway Councillor. We've been submitting strategic housing investment planning reports to Scottish Government since

1. We've been highlighting that the affordable housing programme that we seek to deliver needs a significant amount of far more funding than we actually get. So going back to 2017 we had a deficit of £50 million to provide the affordable housing programme then. The last ship report stated there was a deficit of £650 million to provide the full affordable housing programme. That said, we're not asking the Scottish Government to give us £650 million this year. We're pragmatic and realistic about this. It may be that there is underspend in other areas and if that is the case then Edinburgh would be able to potentially use that funding to enable some affordable homes to come forward. We've done that in previous years and I think over the last three or four years we've been able to secure an additional £40 million for the affordable housing support programme that had been allocated to other areas that ended up coming to Edinburgh because we could spend it. Okay, we've got Councillor Mathis-Quayle then Councillor Oslo then Councillor Stanniforth. Councillor Mathis-Quayle. Thank you, Ken Veena. Councillor Booth slightly touched on what I was going to ask. I just don't have so many words to say. What I fear and that's what I would ask some guarantee from officers is that some inequalities could eventually result from this because I know in mine and my colleagues' ward there are a lot of new developments and a lot of contributions and if the money instead of being invested in that side of the city is going to be invested in the other side because there's more need for council housing, I feel that that could be a bit of an imbalance on this but I'm sure officers have this in mind when they do their reports and their studies. Could you guarantee that to me? Thank you. I think it's very difficult to be able to guarantee anything at this point in time. The inequalities that you talk about tend to come about from lack of opportunity within certain wards, lack of land coming forward for housing use. So what I can say is that the programme of potential affordable housing approvals that we're looking to take forward would be reported to Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee. That council officers have always been transparent about the use of community sums and if committee was minded to make the change we could report back on the programme that we want to set out. I think my concern that I need to express committee is that there are housing sites, there are sites which housing developers are looking to take forward just now and we need to put a funding proposal together and get that out as soon as possible. If we can't do that then there are still fallback mechanisms within sections 25 agreements but they're not the kind of thing that we normally do. So those are things like transferring land to the council or alternative tenures. So if an NSL can't take forward the affordable housing then there are other tenures that potentially could be delivered like intermediate rent or golden share. Those aren't our priority. So what we're looking to do is ensure that as much social rent and mid-market rent can come forward as quickly as possible but if we don't move quickly on this we may end up being challenged by developers. Our fallback position then ends up being either transfer of land or community sum and it could result in the kind of sections 75 the applications which development management subcommittee have seen recently. Okay thank you. Councillor Osler. I don't think it's going to become much of a news flash for those of us who represent more sort of urbanized city-based areas that there already is a mass inequality. There's very little affordable housing already within city centre. But that's historic and because of land prices I suppose the query I have is that I appreciate and understand we can't afford to sit on sort of contributions because that's just a waste. It has to be sort of prioritized towards housing. Alex is there a possibility that if we do go ahead with this we can possibly sort of try to change the wording so that it can be used across the city but the prioritization will be in the ward or the surrounding area because I am slightly concerned that I appreciate and understand and it is absolutely vital that we do get housing built no matter where it is you know we need to get housing. But I would just like some kind of a level of assurance that officers will consider say for example if there's something could be done and you know something's coming forward in six months or nine months time that possibly we can just get that balance right so if there is any possibility of housing that that would be looked at in areas where it is more nearer to where the committed sum has come from. Thanks Councillor Alexander and I think we can give an assurance, a categorical assurance that as much as is possible we would use the sums in the same ward. If that's not possible we'd look to adjacent ward. It's only where it's not possible to do that that we would then be moving funding. So my expectation that this is not that we would be moving funding from one area of the city right across the other side of the city this would be the same adjacent ward as much as is practical but there may be instances where that's not possible so in that case we would need to move the monies further. I suppose one of the other things that we could offer is that if monies are moved from one area and there's a significant deficit being held from one area that in the future sums from that ward could then end up being used toward the ward which they'd originally come from so that makes sense. So moving the funding back over time as more sums are paid in and that gets quite complicated though. Okay thank you we have Councillor Stanley, fourth then Councillor Gardner. Thanks Kambina. My question follows on from several others actually Councillor Booth, Councillor Matos Queloz and Councillor Osler. We're aware of these inequalities when it comes to areas you can find social housing in areas where it's very difficult though of course we need more social housing pretty much across the city we need it everywhere. So my question is that if we're dropping this that sometimes potentially might help get social housing in those areas where it is rarer could we use other levers available to the council to try to address those inequalities for instance making sure land we own in areas where social housing is scarce is used for social housing that sort of thing. Thanks Councillor Stanford. I think we do that anyway and so whatever land is coming forward that's no longer being used that has the potential to be used for housing that's what we're looking at as a first step you know looking is there the possibility of delivering social rented homes in that area. I think it doesn't get us over the difficulty or in some wards where actually the council may not own an awful lot of land that is fit for housing use. My colleagues in the states would be able to take me through that or take you through that in a bit more detail but again my understanding with city centre ward in particular is that sites tend to be quite small there's very few areas that are fit for housing use and again when they do come forward it tends to be very small scale 10 minutes or less. Okay Councillor Gartner then Councillor Osler. Yep thanks convener. The reduction in the housing grant is extremely concerning. It was precipitated by a reduction in capital funding from the UK government and immediately followed that in November last year. In the spring of this year the then first minister talked about 80 million over two years so Edinburgh's allocation from that would if we have 10% of the population probably more housing need than some other places it would be somewhere in the order of 8 million over two years 4 million per year. Are you able to factor that in to your sums? Has there been any dialogue with the government about that? Is that being made available? Thank you. Thanks Councillor Gartner. I mean we have had dialogue with the Scottish government about that funding. I wish that the allocation process was based on a kind of per head or housing need but in the past we've had funding that's become available it's tended to be used on a who can use it most quickly type basis. So we've already said to the Scottish government that we have a number of sites that we would want to take forward that could use this funding both this year and next year but with 32 local authorities all competing for £18 million which ends up being £40 million each year then I think if we got £8 million we'd probably be doing better than we have in the past in overall allocation terms for that size of pot. Just a brief follow up, I understand that because of our active programme when other authorities aren't using there but in the past we've been able to get more for the City of Edinburgh on that basis because of the good work you're doing in bringing a programme forward so your comment there seems a bit strange. It's not intended to be strange Councillor Gartner. The amount of money that we've been able to secure above our resource planning assumption has been substantial in terms of the effect it can have on the city but I think I'd mentioned that the amount of funding we secured over the last few years had been about £40 million, that's no small sum but if you look at the scale of the affordable housing budget across Scotland which sits at just under £500 million this year and had been larger, had been around £700 million a couple of years ago, that £40 million over three or four years is not a significant proportion of money that's been moved towards Edinburgh unfortunately. Okay we've got Councillor Osler, Councillor Booth. Thank you, this is a sideways one because we were talking obviously about the removal of actually putting it into areas where like city centre and my own board being very low in terms of short housing, I wondered whether housing committee actually considered other policies, an example being the council took the decision to obviously divest itself when it was the minority sort of holder into a block, have there been other thoughts about how those can be addressed in areas where there is very little affordable social homes owned by the council? So I think that's one of the considerations that is taken into account with acquisitions and disposals of the programme as to how many units we have within an area as well as within a certain block what is the current ownership state is, how many homes do the council own, is it realistic that we would ever gain enough of a percentage of ownership to be in control of a certain block because that's the reason for the acquisitions and disposals programme, it's very costly for the council to have to engage with owners, carry out works and then build owners for those works where the council doesn't have a majority ownership. So yeah I think we already considered that, I don't think that we'd make a significant change in terms of number of affordable housing units, I think our acquisitions and disposals programme is disposing of and acquiring roughly the same number of units and I think it ends up being about sort of 40 or 50 units a year at best across the whole of the city. Okay, Councillor Booth. Thanks, this is a process question so it might be a question for Taylor, I'm not sure. So paragraph 4.16 of the report that went to housing committee, housing, homeless and fair work says that this report is referred to planning committee for an in principle decision in relation to the use of planning contributions but the recommendations at the front of this report merely say that the committee has referred the report to us to consider the use of affordable housing commuted sums on a city wide basis. So you just clarify, if we approve this report today, are we approving an in principle, are we making an in principle decision that commuted sums can be made on an affordable basis and if so, why did the recommendations not say that? So just to clarify, whatever committee approved today, it would be the recommendations that have been circulated in the report. I'm not sure why they're different but I can definitely seek clarification just now and come back to you if that's okay. But yeah, I don't know if it was in error but whatever committee approved it would be the recommendations in the report that circulated to you today. Taylor's just checking that just now. Councillor Mowat, do you want to? I just wanted to come in on that. I think the problem is which Councillor Booth's highlighting is that we actually haven't got a recommendation. The planning, the housing, homelessness and fair work committee were asked to refer this on for us to consider in relation to take an action but actually in the actions, the decision action, it says we've got a report referred to us to consider the use but I think we probably need to put in an addendum, if we're agreeing that, we would need to put in an addendum saying we agree to that. Yeah, I think it would be an addendum that we agree to that. I think it's asking for us to take an action but an action hasn't. There's no action prepared so we'll have to cobble one together on the hoof. Yeah, no I've just had a look and yeah, you're right, you would probably or somebody would need to put up a verbal addendum in order for that decision to be made. Happy to go forward on that basis but we might, with Councillor Osler? Yeah, thanks Camila, that's helpful. I don't expect that that will take very long and certainly I don't have a problem with the principle of it although I obviously have some problem with some of the detail of it. I just have one further question for Alex. I think I heard you correctly, Alex, when you said that if we approve in principle today, then any committed sums that are used outside of the ward or the adjacent ward would be reported to Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work. Can I just clarify that you would be able to let this committee know as well, not necessarily through a report but perhaps through the business bulletin? Alex, go ahead. We would let this committee know and as is usual practice, we do report on committed sums to Planning Committee on a regular basis so we've done that over the last few years on an annual basis. So we do that. The other thing that we would be doing in relation to that is there's a report that was going to Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work committee which would be referred to this committee. Thank you, Councillor Osler. I have a clarification point and then I have a small proposal to put forward. I just wanted to get a clarification for officers. Because the paragraph that's come to us from Housing has said at the end of it, committed sums on a city-wide basis where individual legal agreements did not restrict this, would it be then going forward we would no longer restrict it? I just want clarification on that so that would then be removed. No, Councillor Osler, sorry. So this is a measure that we're taking just with the existing committed sums to plug the gap that the funding cut has left. We don't seek to amend Section 75 legal agreements in any way or do things any differently other than being able to change where committed sums are used on a temporary basis this year to plug that gap. Okay, then I suppose my follow up to that then would be is are we considering changing this going forward? Because if this has come to us now, and Alex, as you've said, there's an ongoing pressure. And as Councillor Booth said earlier, this point was brought in when the wards were much smaller. And if we can, if there already is in process, the thought process, it would either be immediate or surrounding and then it would be the third stage. Would it not be better to change this so it actually reflects that and then we don't have to consider this again? I think you're right, Councillor Osler. And since we are committed to updating the Foodable House and Policy guidance for City Plan, I think that's something that we would seek to wrap up within that and maybe the Foodable House and Policy guidance to make that clearer in future. Can I just get clarification from planning officers as well on that, in terms of legal agreements? Sorry, I was just going to... Sorry, can you clarify what your precise question was? And I may be planning officers myself to try and clarify where we are, what is possible in terms of legal agreement. My question is, if we're looking at this as a policy for a temporary basis, and we have an ongoing housing pressure, why are we looking at this from a temporary basis and not looking as this particular policy hasn't been looked at since, whatever it was, 2007, shouldn't this be something we should be looking at anyway to amend going forward? If it is going to be, as Alex says, something that they look at for a community sum in the immediate vicinity, the nearby vicinity, and then if that isn't possible, then the wider vicinity, shouldn't we be amending that going forward? There's definitely... There's a planning point with it too. No, we'll pass it over to the officers shortly. But on the legal side of this, just from the 75 point, and why possibly this point certainly hasn't been in the model 75 for the last five years at least, if not longer than that, is partly to reflect, well, the affordable housing policy terms are really a matter for committee to update and review as you see fit. And so it's really open left in the actual 75 as being, in terms of us taking the community sums in and then using them, it would be for the affordable housing team to use in accordance with whatever your policy is at the time. And so the terms in the 75 are kept fairly broad to simply be to use as the council sees fit to deliver affordable housing. So that's how it's been framed in recent years. So certainly the review that's going on will be to look for those hopefully relatively few where it's been more specifically tied down. But that in some ways reflects your question a little bit in terms of that is how that approach has been taken in the 75, and I'll pass it over, in terms of planning officer's views in terms of tying this down and the appropriateness of this or not, or whether this is more of a temporary measure. I think, I mean, certainly in my experience, it's always been the preference to have delivery on site wherever possible. And not to preempt what Alex might say, but I think this is a response to a particular situation that hasn't been necessary in other times, hopefully will not be necessary going forward. And therefore the temporary approach still leaves the option of making it permanent in the future if that's considered to be the appropriate way to go, but also gives us the opportunity to review in terms of reverting to the previously preferred position if the funding situation improves so that we can pursue our affordable housing approach. Alex, do you wish to comment on that? I'm in agreement with all of that. It's just a temporary measure to plug the funding cap this year. But as we are, as we're committed to bring forward new affordable housing policy guidance, which includes, the report had specifically asked for additional information on the viability process, which is what leads us to community sums. I think there's a possibility to look at the allocation process again as well. Okay. It's just about that affordable housing policy review. Where is that going to report to and which committee owns that? That's the planning committee. Okay. So we come to this committee. Councillor Booth. Yeah, I would not support making this a permanent change. I have to say, I note that the next, due report to this committee on committed sums is in the autumn of this year, according to our ruling actions log. I'm just checking that that is correct, Alex. Yeah, I see nods. So I think if there is consideration about whether or not to make it permanent, that that should be made on the basis of a report to this committee, not a referral from another committee. I think the request that housing homelessness and fair work have made is reasonable on a temporary basis because we've seen a massive slashing of the grant from Scottish government, which is a result of massive slashing of the grant from government, from UK government. So we've got to hope that this is a temporary thing because let's face it, we have a desperate need for genuinely affordable housing and that grant needs to be put back. So I think on a temporary basis, fine, I would be reluctant in agreeing it as a permanent basis today. I did have a further question, Camina, but I don't know whether it's directly. Can I? Okay. So it was just in terms of the paragraph, and I don't know whether this is within our remit or whether it's in housing homelessness and fair work committees remit. 4.17 talks about different tenures being able to deliver greater numbers. And obviously that is true. But is any assessment being given about whether other tenures adequately deliver affordable housing for those on the lowest incomes? You know, does it meet the need that has been identified, for example, by the Edinburgh Poverty Commission? Because I think without that assessment, I think there is a risk that we're chasing numbers instead of instead of meeting need. That's a good question. housing needs forefront of our mind on this. So my understanding is that there is a report that's due back to the planning committee on affordable housing tenures. And so that was from the motion that we put forward for one of the affordable housing policy reports in the past. And so we seek to wrap that up within one report that looks at those affordable housing tenures. In terms of your second or sorry, the point you're raising about, you would want a referral report to be changing the way that Section 75 or Section 75 are set out or the way that community sums are used. That would not be the case. Any change to the affordable housing policy would come to the planning committee and it wouldn't be a referral from any other committee. Okay, thanks very much. We're a couple of minutes away from our 40 minute time limit, but I don't see any other questions. No, that's fine. I suppose in moving the recommendations, it's can be a point of order. Sorry, of course. I wonder if you could have a five minute recess in order to help us to formulate a form of words for the recommendation unless you and Taylor have cooked one up between you. So I mean, for one point, one of the report, we were just going to remove the section or the two words that says to consider to alter that input to approve. So it would be to approve the use of affordable housing committed sums on a citywide basis. So just to move those two words. I see hands. Councillor, it was Councillor Gardner, Councillor Osler. Yeah, there was some concern was raised about it being a permanent change. Can you just reassure me that it's only a temporary change? I think that's contained in the report, but yeah, I've checked with Mr. Given and we is confirmed that it's a temporary measure. David, I don't know if you want to. Yeah, whether that should just be clarified in the in the recommendation and that just makes that perfectly clear. Looking to Alex to confirm that you're content with that. We are. Yeah. Okay, so it'll be to temporarily approve then. So we've got Councillor Osler then Councillor. That is exactly what I was going to clarify because contrary to what has obviously happened here, I was not in any way, shape or form suggesting was permanent at the moment. It was more in terms of when we go forward and we consider this in a more measured point to when we have a report coming forward, we should consider it because as you yourself said, Chas, there is occasions where we have areas that don't have any affordable housing and there's a possibility that if we did have it citywide, then those areas could be provided with affordable housing. So it was to look at across the board in a more measured fashion. Yeah, I think I don't actually think just temporary is suitable because temporary lasts until we revoke it. So I think what Mr. Blyth has said in his submissions is this is to get us over this calendar year, this sort of financial year. So I think we should actually specify it for the financial year 24/25 because that gives us time. If we've got other policies coming back, then we can look at that and look at whether we want to make those changes to the affordable housing policy because we've got that report coming back. But I think if we just say temporarily, it lasts until we take another decision and if that decision gets overlooked for other reasons, we could have made this change forever. So I would just say that we've approved the use of affordable housing commuted sums on a citywide basis where individual legal requirements do not fall for the calendar year for the financial year 24/25. Okay, that sounds fine. Did I miss? I didn't know. Okay, that's fine. So I'll just move the report and with that verbal update, which it was to see the approval of the use of affordable housing commuted sums on a citywide basis where individual legal agreements do not restrict us for the financial year 2024/25. I thank the committee for that. I think on a temporary basis, I think that is acceptable, although I know that they'll obviously need to work on a longer term plan. I think we need to do that because I don't think this issue is going away. I think that the £11 million cut we've received to affordable home budget isn't just concerning. I just think it's absolutely shocking. We have a huge issue in the city where we have over 5,000 temporary households and temporary accommodation. We don't solve that by cutting affordable home budgets. We want to bolster or stimulate our economy, get people to work, particularly in the construction sector. You don't do that by cutting affordable housing budgets by £11 million. So it is just really quite shocking. And for me, regardless of what level of government it is, because it is UK government and Scottish government, both governments have, I think, lost their political compass by approving or putting through cuts of this level. But I think at council level and for councillors, it's about what can we do to help solve this issue. And I think what we're discussing in this report today is part of that, along with many of the other actions. I believe there's over 60 actions and initiatives that are being put through the Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee. So there is a lot of work being done. This is one small part of it, but I hope it opens up a wider conversation as what we can do within our remit is that the planning committee and planning for it to do as much as we can to build homes and particularly affordable homes and help play our part to resolving the housing crisis. Taylor, I want to double check. I've got some hands coming up, but if there's no alternative positions, are members allowed to make contributions? No. So, unfortunately, Council Cameron, Council Gardner will just be moving the report. If there's no other alternative position, then it will just be to agree that. So is committee agreed? Agreed. Okay. Thank you so much. Taylor? Yeah, thank you, convenor. There's nothing sorry at sections 9, 10 or 11, so that is the end of today's business. All right. Thank you, committee. Hold on. Sorry, officers want to come in to clarify something. If you can just bear with us. It was a clarification in relation to a point that was raised earlier, I think during the business. Yeah, on conservation and adaptation colleague just confirmed that the draft it would be draft conservation and adaptation roadmap had been developed and was presented and agreed at a meeting with the group leads, planning spokespeople of the planning committee on the 19th of February
2. So there has been a wider briefing on that. Thanks, councillors. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. .