In article ,
Malcolm wrote:

No, I don't think it does, in the slightest! The more especially as the
questioner lives in Aberdeen and planning is a devolved matter in
Scotland so information about what happens in Greater London, or indeed
happened in the Thatcher years, doesn't really help him very much.

It provides background to why your response is unreliable. You may
not regard that as help, but he might.

Aberdeen City Council, which was only formed in 1996, will no doubt be
able to advise on planning regulations operating, as it does, under the
Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, which repealed the Town
and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972, which in turn was the Scottish
version of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 from which you quoted.

Would you like to quote the relevant section of the 1997 Act that gives
local authorities powers to make regulations? If not, why not provide
SOME hint as to why you are saying that it gives VASTLY more powers
to them than the 1971 Act does?

I am saying that I have been told by a fairly reliable source that
it does not. My source have been wrong, or I may have misunderstood,
but it is certainly a matter that the initial questioner should check
up on if the local authority is uncooperative or gives an unpalatable
answer.

Therefore, the answer *has* to come from the local planning department,
while asking questions on newsgroups will not (indeed almost certainly
cannot) produce the same definitive answer, however "bogus" you might
think it could be based on your apparent experience of, presumably
English, local authorities and regardless of decisions made by,
presumably English, courts, neither of which are relevant in this
instance.

Your presumptions are, as usual, unwarranted.

As you ought to know, the matter of delegated powers is one where
Scottish and English used to vary considerably, but now do so much
less, as the result of huge amounts of statute legislation and the
consequent court cases. In both cases, there is no penalty on a
local authority for misleading questioners, and my point about the
untrustworthiness of a response remains valid. No, the answer does
NOT "have to" come from the local authority, despite what you or
other apparatchiks may believe.

To repeat what I said, if he gets advice that conflicts seriously
with what he wants to do, he should check if the local authority is
correct. There is a significant chance that it is not, and a small
chance that it is deliberately misleading him. And that advice
applies as much to Scotland as to England.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.