Hansard

That could mean roads, public transport infrastructure, schools or energy, and we need to be much more specific. For example, because of the lack of investment from the Scottish Government, the City of Edinburgh Council is having to put its own money into housing associations in order to get any new investment for social housing, and there is a massive crisis in the city. If the Scottish Government is not requiring private development to put in the money, and is not itself prepared to put in the money, it is requiring local government to do so. The Government needs to be honest about that and to accept the impact that it will have on community development.

Local authorities and housing associations have been hit by a double whammy of cuts in housing investment from the SNP Government and the impact of welfare reform from the Tory Government, which together have completely undermined the economics of affordable social rented housing.

We are in the middle of a crisis, and the policy that is on paper in the SPP is not going to happen in reality. If we factor in the changing demographics highlighted by the Christie commission, we see that there are even more challenges to local planning authorities in relation to new models of community development that meet the needs of a growing elderly population. I do not believe that what is written on the pages of the SPP will deliver on the minister’s ambitions, because investment will be key.

One of the issues highlighted in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 was low-carbon housing, which is relevant to the intervention that the minister has just made. The act did not simply address the issue as one of individual house design; it was about the need for community renewable heat and power schemes. Given the massive increases in costs for domestic energy and heat, that is an issue not for NPF4 but for now.

Given the carbon emissions that come from housing, I wondered when reading the Government motion why energy infrastructure is not on the list alongside transport and digital infrastructure, because there is a market failure not only in housing but in affordable heat and power as well. It is only when local authorities such as Aberdeen City Council have gone out to make things happen that such schemes have worked. That issue is not flagged up in the housing section and, although there is a section on energy, we have all been so focused on renewables from wind farms that the fundamental issue of sourcing heat and power for urban communities and for housing has not been joined up.

If community renewables are to be part of our vision for our towns, villages and cities, they will not just happen by accident. They do not simply have to be planned for; they need political leadership from the Scottish Government.

I have a couple of minutes left, so in my closing remarks I want to list a couple of other important issues.

The Royal Town Planning Institute is right to welcome a renewed focus on town centres. We have all seen the report published in the past week or so showing that there is a possibility that, over the next four years, 25 per cent of retail units in town centres will go. The ambition of the SPP is good, but we need a bit more oomph. We need to put more emphasis on housing and residential developments in our city centres, because there has been a flight of people from our city centres. People want to live in city centres but, if all our developments are mixed commercial developments, our town centres will not survive. We must ensure that they are sustainable in the long run.

I also want to say something about green infrastructure receiving huge support for tourism, nature conservation and low-carbon lifestyles generally. There are references in the SPP to long-distance walking and cycle routes. That is great, but it must be complemented by investment, which means the Scottish Government investing more on national routes and greenlighting investment in local communities too.

We saw the ambition at the pedal on Parliament demonstration last month. The key point being made there was that people need to be able to use their bikes from their house to wherever they are going, but our streets are simply not safe enough. The issue is not just about long-term routes; it is about local routes, as well.

My final point is that there is a total absence of any proposals for new national parks. Even if a new national park were suggested in NPF3, it would still be years and years away. Surely it is time for our national parks in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs and the Cairngorms to be joined by another national park. What about our first marine and coastal national park? There is a lot in the NPF about our seas, coastal communities and ports development, which is welcome, but that makes the absence of a national park in our coastal and marine areas even more striking.