ALMOST half of Scotland’s local authorities planning departments don’t have in-house ecological expertise, with campaigners claiming “skimping” on experts is “gambling” on communities' futures.
Figures from freedom of information requests by the coalition group Scottish Environment LINK and published in a new Nature Protection Scorecard indicate that four out of 10 planning departments in Scotland’s 32 councils have no ecological experts.
Planning departments must advise elected representatives on development decisions, which can have significant environmental impact, and are responsible for the development of Nature Networks within their local authority.
The newly-compiled data shows that 14 councils say they employ no in-house ecological expertise within their planning departments.
In some cases, councils use consultants on a contracted basis to provide ecological advice, with a further five local authorities saying that they had neither in-house expertise nor had used external advice over the last 12 months.
Clare Symonds, chief officer at Planning Democracy, said that local councils' decisions on which developments go ahead can have “profound and lasting consequences” for Scotland’s environment.
“Yet in some council areas they are being made with little or no access to ecological expertise,” she added.
There are 34 planning authorities in Scotland, consisting of 32 local councils and two National Parks.
Findings showed that 13 authorities employed the equivalent of a sole employee.
The highest levels of ecological capacity are in Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority and West Lothian Council at around three full-time employees each.
Symonds said that local authorities “cannot afford to be flying blind when decisions made today will shape Scotland’s natural environment for generations to come”.
She added: “Ecological expertise is not a luxury or a nice-to-have that can be squeezed out when budgets are tight.
“Planning officers need the skills and expertise to properly interrogate the ecological evidence submitted with development proposals but Planning Democracy are seeing cases where important information has been missed, from ancient and veteran trees overlooked or surveys being carried out at the wrong time of year, to wholly inadequate proposals for protecting and enhancing biodiversity.”
Symonds went on to say that Scotland has a system in which developers commission the ecological reports that are then used to assess their own proposals.
“That is a remarkable way to run a planning system; it is effectively asking developers to mark their own homework,” she said.
“If we are serious about protecting nature, local authorities need properly resourced biodiversity officers and the ability to commission independent ecological assessments themselves, rather than leaving developers to provide all the evidence on which environmental decisions depend.
“Skimping on ecological expertise is a gamble with our future and it risks leaving the next generation to pick up the bill for decisions we get wrong today. The Scottish Government must give councils the resources and ecological firepower they need to see through weak assessments, challenge bad proposals and make sure nature is properly protected.
She added: “We cannot ask councils to safeguard Scotland’s natural environment while leaving them without the people, skills or independent evidence they need to do the job.”
Kat Jones, director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, added: “As well as advising on development decisions, council planning departments are supposed to help restore Scotland’s nature and make sure people have access to it by developing connected networks of quality natural habitat.
“It’s hard to see how local councils can fulfil this obligation without having staff who understand local ecosystems.”
