The Scottish Building Federation (SBF) has welcomed the latest figures, published by Scotland's Chief Statistician on Thursday, which show that the average time taken to determine planning applications over the last year has fallen.

The report found that the average time taken to determine major planning applications was 12 days quicker in 2013/14 than the previous year. However, at 34.6 weeks, the new average wait is still more than double the four-month period recommended by Scottish Government guidance for the determination of such applications.

Just five of Scotland's 34 planning authorities had an average decision period for major applications under the 16-week target. Looking at the different authorities, the worst performance was by Aberdeenshire, where major applications took an average 53.9 weeks to be determined during 2013/14.

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In response to Thursday's figures, SBF has said it emphasises the importance of sustaining investment in Council planning departments to deal with an increasing number of planning applications as the economy continues to recover.

Vaughan Hart, Scottish Building Federation Managing Director, said: "It's encouraging that average decision times for planning applications in Scotland are continuing to speed up. But as the economy continues to recover, we can easily anticipate that the volume of large scale planning applications will increase and with that the pressure on planning authorities to process these as efficiently as possible.

"We recognise the huge financial pressure local authorities are under and the impact this has had on Council planning departments. But to remove what could otherwise be a critical obstacle to recovery in the construction sector, investment in the capacity of planning authorities to process applications efficiently is absolutely vital."

(JP/CD)