Liam Kerr
Conservative
On Monday, the Scottish Government reporter overturned Aberdeen City Council’s unanimous cross-party decision not to build on Rubislaw quarry, despite huge local protests and nearly 1,500 local signatures on my petition.
Since May 2019, 10 separate planning applications in Aberdeen have been overturned in that way. Will the First Minister confirm that she endorses the Rubislaw decision? Does she oppose the Scottish Conservative policy to guarantee in law that local authority planning decisions are respected, so that developments are always carried out in conjunction with the wishes of local authorities?
Nicola Sturgeon
Scottish National Party
As a matter of principle, I am always very sceptical about backing Tory policies, because usually they are pretty wrong-headed. On a serious point—[
Interruption
.] Ruth Davidson thinks that she is taunting me from a sedentary position about election results that are forthcoming. Of course, she does not have to worry about election results, because she will be sitting on the red benches of the House of Lords, pursuing a political career at the taxpayer’s expense—
The Presiding Officer:
First Minister, answer the question please.
The First Minister:
Back to the question. There is a serious point here, which is that we have a statutory planning process, with different levels and stages, and it is important that ministers respect that. I am sure that there are people who think that any decision on planning that a local authority takes should be respected, but I know that many other people—I have had instances of this in my Constituency—like the fact that they can appeal against local authority decisions and that there is a process after that.
One of the many things that I have learned over my many years in politics is that, on planning in particular, depending on what the planning proposal is, some people will think that the local authority view should always prevail and some will think that it should never prevail. That is why we must have in place a proper, robust, independent process, which we do.
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