Landowners in Scotland have called for a review of the country's planning system, it has been announced.

The request was made by Scottish Land & Estates to the government panel set up to review the system.

The organisation said ensuring flexibility in rural planning policies should be a 'key tenet of future changes' to the planning system.

It added a joined-up approach between planning and land reform should also be adopted.

Policy Officer at the organisation, Katy Dickson, said: "We are clear that the review of the planning system should be integrated with likely forthcoming changes in land reform and land use strategy policies. The development of these policy strands are currently disconnected despite clear overlaps in dealing with issues of land resource and the delivery of public benefits from land.

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"It is fundamentally important that there is flexibility of planning policies in rural areas. Unfortunately, we have seen many examples where this is lacking including where one of our members, Dormont Estates in Dumfriesshire, struggled to have appropriate street-scaping of a new affordable housing development approved. The policy determined there should be pavements, white lines and street lamps but this was inappropriate for the rural setting. 

“We support the multi-tiered approach to development planning but would welcome the introduction of streamlining mechanisms to reduce unnecessary delays and costs."

Ms Dickson added since community engagement is also an important part of the planning system, the organisation believed this should be "as proactive and vision focused as possible, rather than being limited to individual applications or indeed taking place at the latter stages of the planning process."

(LM)