Attempts to reform the beleaguered planning system have begun to bear fruit as new figures from the Scottish government show an improvement in the time taken to deal with appeals.

In the past six months, more than 80% of written planning appeals were dealt with within 12 weeks, compared with 27% in the year 2008-2009 and just 6% in 2007-2008. The average time taken to decide written planning appeals in the period was 11 weeks — compared with an average of 16 weeks over the past five years.

The Scottish government holds public inquiries to handle appeals over applications rejected by local authorities. It has vowed to reform the system, which has come under fire from business leaders citing lengthy planning processes as hampering growth.

The business community today welcomed the news, but said more needed to be done at grassroots level.

David Lonsdale, the assistant director of CBI Scotland, called the improvement “an encouraging step towards creating a more efficient and cost-effective planning system”, but urged improvement “across the board”. He called for local authorities to be “better incentivised” to support economic development.

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