RPS Planning Director speaks to Planning magazine about the Scottish Planning Act and what inspired them to join RPS.

Previously published in Planning magazine, 14 December 2007.

The Team Player Returns

Anyone who doubts the importance of the ongoing Scottish planning reforms should spend a few minutes talking to Alan Pollock. The Ulsterman, a respected figure across the Irish Sea and co-author of a planning guide circulated to every councillor following May’s elections, agrees with ministers that last year’s Scottish Planning Act is quite simply the most fundamental change since 1947.

He believes that a key point in his implementation has been reached with the imminent publication of proposals for revised planning application procedures. “I see it as the most important consultation that the Scottish Government has undertaken in recent years,” he says.

“Failure to get this right will undermine the whole reform agenda. The act and its broad aims will be very difficult to dispute, hence the very wide support. But the details really hold the key to the future success or otherwise of the package,” he maintains.

Pollock’s successful and varied career leaves him well qualified to comment. Since his early days with Belfast City Council, he has worked in both the public and private sectors, becoming an acknowledged expert in residential and mineral schemes, environmental impact assessments and development plans.

For three years to 2003 he was head of planning at David Kirk & Associates, a multidisciplinary practice in Edinburgh, before opting to become self-employed as DKA Planning. He was involved in several high-profile projects including Scottish Coal’s opencast proposals at Broken Cross near Lanark and masterplanning a 1,000 home land release in West Lothian.

Now at the age of 58, he has decided to surrender his independence to manage the growth of RPS Group’s Edinburgh office in Leith, where three senior appointments have already been made and a fourth is in the pipeline.

The firm sees significant growth potential for its multidisciplinary approach in its three areas of planning and development, energy and environmental management. Its staff includes specialists in environmental risk, EIAs, contaminated land and urban design and landscape.

“The first priority is very much one of integrating the team and developing our business based on the strengths of the individuals who have been appointed,” Pollock explains. “It is all about consolidation and expansion of our existing activities,” he says.

This range of expertise was one of the factors that tempted Pollock back into the corporate fray. “I think that it was the prospect of leading a large team and being able to handle major projects entirely in-house,” he acknowledges. “Previously I was having to put together that team from a range of sources. But it so happens that I was doing work for a number of RPS’ principal clients, so the connection was already there,” he says.

He might also have mentioned the convergence of interests, which appear to make Pollock and RPS natural partners. His previous involvement in environmentally sensitive developments is mirrored in the firm’s ethos, which has led it, for example, to offer carbon footprint studies to clients. The workload is also familiar, with minerals and waste and wind farm developments figuring in RPS’ casebook.

“I believe that the wider environmental agenda will have more and more impact in the future,” Pollock predicts. “There is a tendency on the part of consultants to assume that someone else deals with this area. At RPS we have developed this integrated approach to how we can help our clients and it is now quite a central aspect of the business. It is not the role of the planning system to save the planet but there is an increasing emphasis on a range of provisions in which we can make a small contribution through decision-making.”

Another hot topic of the moment that Pollock will confront in his new role is the need to build more homes, with the Scottish Government’s housing supply task force currently taking evidence on how to remove blockages from the system, particularly in rural areas.

Pollock agrees with ministers’ diagnosis of the problem and is clear about the main area for action. “I think that the issues raised in Scotland are different to those in England,” he contends. “It is quite evident that the blockages are much more acute and can be blamed principally on a complete lack of infrastructure investment in the past.”

Pollock, who is also company secretary of Planning Aid for Scotland, sees the challenge of expanding RPS satisfying most of his remaining career ambitions. As for the wider profession he believes that it is in generally good health but has reservations about the way new entrants are being trained.

“I always had some concerns that universities are taking planning education further and further away from realities of planning practice,” says Pollock, a former acting head of the planning school at the University of Dundee.

“That was the principal reason I got out. So it doesn’t entirely surprise me to hear criticism that it is producing graduates who tends to lack some of the skills required,” he admits. “That said, it can be argued that planning education is not about producing oven-ready planners but rather about training planners to think in a particular way.”

08 January 2008


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