Strategic Planning Advice for Calmax Construction Ltd.

Arthian’s Planning team became involved during the latter stages of the application process to assist Calmax in navigating the policy and technical challenges associated with flood risk.

Rather than attempting to challenge national policy directly, Arthian’s approach focused on demonstrating how decision-makers could lawfully reconcile the technical evidence with the policy framework.

The planning strategy centred on three key principles:

Distinguishing Flood Risk from Policy Compliance
Arthian advised that the critical issue was not whether flooding could occur in a theoretical sense, but whether the development would place future residents at unacceptable risk.

The planning team worked with the existing technical evidence to show:

• The site’s flood characteristics were understood.
• Appropriate mitigation measures could be incorporated.
• The development would remain safe and functional over its design life.

This shifted the discussion away from a binary policy conflict and towards a balanced planning judgement based on real-world risk.

Emphasising the Council’s Role as Flood Risk Authority
A key component of Arthian’s advice was to focus the planning authority’s attention on its own statutory responsibilities and technical expertise.

While SEPA maintained concerns regarding NPF4’s flood avoidance principle, the Comhairle itself, acting as:

• Flood Risk Management Authority,
• Roads Authority, and
• Coast Protection Authority,

ultimately concluded that it did not object to the development on coastal flood risk grounds.

Arthian’s planning assessment highlighted that decision-makers were entitled to place significant weight on the findings of their own technical authorities where robust evidence demonstrated that risks could be satisfactorily managed.

Establishing Wider Planning Benefits
Arthian also ensured that the wider planning merits of the proposal remained central to the assessment.

Key benefits included:

• Delivery of 94 new homes in an area experiencing housing demand.
• Regeneration of previously developed brownfield land.
• Efficient reuse of former airport and military land.
• Provision of landscaping and public open space.
• Avoidance of pressure for greenfield development elsewhere.

The planning case demonstrated that refusal based solely on a precautionary interpretation of flood policy would fail to recognise the substantial social and economic benefits arising from redevelopment of the site.

The Recommended Way Forward
Arthian advised that the most robust route to consent was not to pursue further redesign or significant reduction of the developable area, but instead to:

1. Maintain the technically justified site layout.

2. Continue engagement with planning officers.

3. Demonstrate compliance with flood risk management objectives through evidence.

4. Rely on the Comhairle’s own flood risk assessment and technical conclusions.

5. Balance any remaining policy tension against the significant housing and regeneration benefits delivered by the proposal.

This approach provided planning officers and committee members with a defensible basis for exercising planning judgement despite the outstanding policy concerns.