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The Main Issues Issue 5
Tackling risk - strategic development priorities
6.87 Delivery
of the MDS is multi-agency and multi-sector. The severity of public expenditure restraint, its impact on committed public investment programmes, combined with the difficulty of trading conditions for private sector investors and developers will impact on the delivery of, for example:
■ integrated sustainable public transport (WSCPTS); ■ integrated water and drainage solutions (MGSDP); ■ Community Growth Areas and housebuilding in general; ■ intermediate market affordable housing - HNDA, the Scottish Government’s Firm Foundations and Fresh Thinking initiatives; and
6.89 The
risk to the MDS is not driven by planning strategy and development land proposals, but by a lack of resources and lack of confidence across multiple development sectors.
6.90 A
consequence of this risk is that alternatives to the MDS and its proposals will be promoted which run counter to the key drivers of the Strategy. This potentially results in pressures that strengthen the carbon-economy link rather than reduce it and that push the development of nonsustainable locations. Additionally, the expansion of the carbon footprint of the city-region, the acceleration of the growth of emissions rather than the mitigation of them, and, through a short-term reaction to difficult financial and expenditure conditions, promotes an alternative non-sustainable future that is difficult to control.
6.91 In
■ The Glasgow and Clyde Valley Green Network and Central Scotland Green Network. 6.88 The
origins of the financial problems and risks and their solutions lie outwith the ambit of the planning system and the SDP, but pose major risks for the MDS, the Action Plan and implementation process. Whilst the SDP is long-term and generational in its vision and will encompass a number of economic cycles, the nature of these cycles presents real risk to delivery in the short to medium term. On the assumption that recovery takes place in the medium to long-term, greater certainty will return to the market and the public expenditure position can be expected to improve. In turn, the delivery of the MDS priorities can be expected to gather pace over time. There is therefore a major challenge to ensure that phasing and sequencing of the MDS priorities are undertaken in the shortto medium-term, to 2020.
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order to minimise this risk, there must be a common cause between government, its agencies, the GCVSDPA, its partners and its councils, the development industry and other investment and development organisations to secure the necessary resources to manage the delivery of the MDS and the sequencing of its priorities.
Issue 5 Tackling risk strategic development priorities Question 25 What should the GCVSDPA do to mitigate the risk to its sustainability - based strategy in the face of market and financial pressures - do you agree with the process of prioritisation? Question 26 In responding to the current economic situation and expected dampening of demand and growth to 2020 or beyond, should the GCVSDPA adopt a lesser level of sustainable development in its strategic vision and aims, despite all the drivers of change pointing to a need for an even more sustainable future?
GLASGOW AND THE CLYDE VALLEY STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN MAIN ISSUES REPORT SEPTEMBER 2010