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Planning, Architecture and Regeneration News

Circular 4/2025 on Planning Obligations and Good Neighbour Agreements

We have published today Circular 4/2025 on Planning Obligations and Good Neighbour Agreements which revokes and replaces Circular 3/2012. The use of planning obligations can support planning policy by removing obstacles to the grant of planning permission and facilitating the delivery of necessary infrastructure alongside other development.

Following stakeholder comments on a draft, the new Circular sets out how policies on planning obligations and developer contributions should be included within new-style development plans and delivery programmes. It reviews the guidance on the policy tests and clarifies how to provide clear justification for contributions addressing cumulative impacts. The guidance emphasises the importance of development viability in considering planning obligations. It also provides some advice around the development management process and the content of legal agreements.

Update to Biodiversity Planning Guidance

Today we published an update to our Biodiversity guidance. This guidance sets out how to implement policies which support the cross-cutting NPF4 outcome ‘improving biodiversity’.

Most of the changes made are technical in nature, these include; the incorporation of new text on linkages between biodiversity, woodland and forestry policy, removal of outdated text, updates to references and sources and updated text on ongoing work by NatureScot to develop an adapted biodiversity metric to support delivery of NPF4 policy 3b. Where specific changes have been made this is shown via version control.