Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thanks very much. I am going to move on to questions from Miles Griffins—[Interruption.] I am sorry; it has been a long morning, and I am beginning to merge my colleagues.

I call Mark Griffin, who joins us online.

That was interesting. As Mark Griffin is done with his questions, we will move on to questions from Marie McNair.

There is an opportunity for well-skilled community facilitators. What you said about how to pull community wealth building through local place plans is very interesting. There is exciting work to be done.

We will move on to questions from Paul McLennan.

That brings our questions to an end. I thank our witnesses for joining us this morning—actually, we have moved into the afternoon—and for opening up the conversation and broadening the topic. We will continue taking evidence on NPF4 at next week’s meeting, when we will hear from the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth. I suspend the meeting briefly to allow our witnesses to leave.

At the start of this meeting, we agreed to take the next two items in private. As we have no more public business today, I now close the public part of the meeting.

Good morning and welcome to the 29th meeting in 2022 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I ask all members and witnesses to ensure that all their devices are on silent and that all notifications are turned off during the meeting.

The first item on the agenda is to decide whether to take items 4 and 5 in private. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

We turn to agenda item 2, which is evidence taking on the national planning framework 4. We will hear from three separate panels of witnesses. First, we are joined by Robbie Calvert, who is policy, practice and research officer at the Royal Town Planning Institute, and Jim Miller, who is the chair of Heads of Planning Scotland. I warmly welcome you both.

I will begin the questioning, and my colleagues have a number of questions. As there are two of you and we have a nice bit of time, we can relax a little, although I will, of course, be keeping us to time.

We will begin by taking a broad overview. Will you briefly outline your views on the key changes that have been made in the “National Planning Framework 4: Revised Draft”?

Thank you very much. Jim Miller, what are your thoughts?

We have gone over time, but it is important that we have the space to get all these views out. Our final committee member to ask questions is Miles Briggs.

I am impressed that, since the document has been published, you have been busy in bringing together planners for discussions in order to question how things will work in the sector. You said that at the beginning and mentioned it again just there. That is fantastic.

You also made the poignant point that planning and decisions about our built environment can affect somebody’s decision to choose to live. That is tremendous, and it would be great to see planners in general resourced properly.