15 December 2008: Faster Growth, Greener Scotland
Tom Miers
The planning system in Scotland is a state-run regime, where government allocates land development rights according to plans that try to predict the economic and environmental needs of society.
This paper argues that, like many other attempts by government to allocate important resources, the planning system does not work well. It lacks price information that would inform it about the relative merits of different types of land use in different areas over time.
The result is that insufficient land is made available for development (leading to high prices, unaffordable housing etc) and that development is often ugly.
The author suggests introducing market style incentives to better performance. Local communities would benefit financially from development, while at the same time developers would pay for any economic or social damage they inflicted.
The result would be a culture that encouraged more, but better designed development of all kinds.