In article , Nick Maclaren
writes
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.

What is the use of English-based background to a planning (or not as the
case may be) matter in Aberdeen? Precious little.

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Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, which repealed the Town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?

You're just weird, you are! Where, please, do I say anything about it
giving "VASTLY more powers"? I can't see any words of mine like that so
why do you claim that I have written them, or even implied them?

What I have pointed out is that there is a 1997 planning act in Scotland
which, by virtue of its date, its geographic scope and the fact that it
was passed by the devolved Scottish parliament, is significantly more
relevant than the 1971 Act which you quoted. Doubly so as the 1971 Act
has a Scotland version, the 1972 Act, which is specifically repealed by
the 1997 Act.

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.

But, before he can do that and before he knows whether or not his local
authority is uncooperative or gives an unpalatable advice, he *has* to
contact them, which is precisely the advice I have proffered.

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.

Err, no, I don't think so. I know you are a (self-professed) expert in a
wide diversity of subjects but somehow I doubt whether the operation of
Scottish local authority planning departments or Scottish planning law
is among them. I don't pretend to expertise, but at least I have some
personal experience of both.

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.

I understand an "apparatchik" as being an implementer of policy for an
organisation, formerly a communist one. Being self-employed, I hardly
fit with your feeble jibe. And, eventually, whatever circuitous route is
taken, the final answer *will* have to come from the local authority.

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.

But, and it seems one has to return to this point, he *still* *has* to
contact his local authority planning department if he wants *any* advice
on what he is or is not permitted to do specifically in Aberdeen.
Offering advice (or background) based on the situation in England either
now or 30 years ago is not going to help him.

--
Malcolm