Scotland supports planning training

Scotland’s aggregate producers have just completed a series of training events for planning authorities across the region in a bid to increase understanding of the quarrying sector. The events were organised after 2897 Mineral Products Association (Scotland) executive director John Sheridan and the Scottish Government’s chief planner Jim Mackinnon agreed that the lack of minerals knowledge in the planning profession could be overcome by the industry taking action to address the problem.

MPA members volunteered to work with the Improvement Service, which runs a skills development programme for local authority planners and elected members using funding from the Scottish Government.  A series of one day events for planning officers on minerals planning, hosted by member companies, was arranged at four quarries in Scotland during the last month.

The events were hosted by 868 Tarmac at Daviot Quarry in Inverness, 643 Cemex’s Collessie Quarry at Ladybank, Fife, 1707 Aggregate Industries’ sites at Powmyre in Glamis and Duntilland near Salsburgh.

In addition to looking at the legislative and policy context to minerals planning in Scotland, various operational issues from markets to after-use were also considered, as were effective development plan policies, conditions and legal agreements.

Response to the programme was good and several of the events were oversubscribed within days of the invitations being issued to the 32 local authorities and two national parks within Scotland.

The events were planned as a two-way process and both the quarry operators and the planning authority attendees reported positively on the outcome of the events.