More work needs to be done to continue to speed up decisions on major planning applications; that's according to Communities Secretary Alex Neil.

Mr Neil's comments come as the Annual Report of Planning Performance was published today (20 February), which revealed an overall reduction in planning decision times for 2013/14, but challenges in processing major applications remains.

He commented: "Effective planning is crucial to promoting sustainable economic growth and my overall focus is speeding up the planning system.

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"The Annual Report demonstrates an 'open for business' approach, with a strong focus on project management and pre-application discussions to engage with applicants early in the process. I am also pleased to see increasing collaboration across authorities to share best practice.

"There is an encouraging overall reduction in decision making timescales, yet performance is extremely variable across development types and across the country. The average decision time for major developments in 2013/14 was as low as seven weeks in one authority, but there were still a number of long running, unresolved applications slowing performance.

"These types of cases must be reduced so that effort and resource can focus on dealing applications that will contribute to a strong economy. I expect to see sustained improvements."

(JP/MH)