Taking the Planifesto forward post Holyrood election

Kirsty Fox Hay is Public Affairs Officer at the RTPI

Scotland went to the polls last week to elect the seventh Scottish Parliament where the SNP remained the largest party with 58 seats, short of the 65 needed for a majority. This election also saw the Scottish Greens gain their first constituency seats, and Reform UK won 17 regional seats, putting them equal with Scottish Labour. This is an exciting time for the RTPI Scotland team after a year of Planifesto preparation and pre-election work.

If you aren’t familiar with our aptly named ‘Planifesto’, we launched it in November 2025 following months of behind-the-scenes preparation through workshops with members, and discussions with our Scottish Executive Committee and Policy Sub-Committee. In our Planifesto, we developed our vision for Scotland – for a Scotland that is prosperous, resilient and equitable, where everyone has access to safe, well-planned places and a healthy natural environment.

From this, we created five asks for the next Scottish Government:

A fully resourced planning system: Scotland’s planning system is fully resourced, plan-led, effective, accessible and is empowered to deliver the homes, jobs, infrastructure and sustainable communities that Scotland needs
Infrastructure-led development: Scotland takes an infrastructure-led approach which ensures services and infrastructure at all scales – national, regional and local – are in place at the right time for the people that need them, supporting sustainable development outcomes.
Diverse and inclusive housing: Scotland has diverse and inclusive housing to meet everyone’s needs and deliver prosperity and growth.
To ensure the future of rural and island communities: Scotland’s rural and island communities have access to the infrastructure and services they need to thrive and achieve a just transition
Thriving and resilient places: Scotland’s communities as prosperous, healthy and biodiverse, driven by an equitable approach to community-led placemaking that inspires, emboldens, and empowers.

Since publishing the Planifesto, we’ve disseminated it to Scotland’s politicians, taken it to Autumn and Spring party conferences, hustings, and meetings with MSPs, and created a nifty QR code business card to take along with us. In March and April, we were patiently anticipating the release of the party manifestos, and once published we tracked and mapped their commitments against our key asks.

RTPI Scotland welcomed the positive commitments made by parties relating to areas across all five of our key asks. In particular, for our asks of a fully resourced planning system, it was great to see the SNP’s manifesto include commitments to take steps to reverse the decline in the number of professional planners working in public authorities, the Liberal Democrats said they would invest in digital tools to speed up decision making in planning, and the Scottish Conservatives said they would strengthen national planning hubs and establish new specialist planning hubs to address waiting times and share knowledge. The Scottish Greens would create a nature-positive planning system that enhances biodiversity and enhances community wellbeing. As well as this, there were mentions of expanding apprenticeship places across the party manifestos. Regarding our ask on infrastructure-led development, Scottish Labour said they would treat housing as critical infrastructure and make greater use of zonal planning.

Regarding our ask on diverse and inclusive housing, we saw strong alignment with the SNP referencing its new housing delivery body, More Homes Scotland, and Scottish Labour mentioning establishing Housing Development Trusts. There were housebuilding targets from a range of parties too with commitments to certain percentages of those being for affordable housing, social rent, and to be built in rural areas, recognising the need for housing of different tenders.

Our ask relating to the future of rural and island communities also saw alignment. For example, both the SNP and Scottish Labour committed to 10% of their housing targets being built in rural and island areas. Additionally, Reform UK and the Scottish Conservatives focused their rural policies on repopulating rural areas and communities at risk of population decline. The Scottish Greens committed to a rural first approach to infrastructure and giving coastal communities greater say over fisheries management and marine spatial planning. The Scottish Liberal Democrats said they would subject new policies and legislation to Rural Communities Impact Assessments.

Finally, on our ask to build thriving and resilient places, we saw the Liberal Democrats say they would develop a programme of net zero new towns. The SNP reference their target of ending Scotland’s contribution to climate change by 2045, expanding the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme, delivering on the Just Transition Fund, and requesting the devolution of energy powers to Holyrood. Scottish Labour said they support the expansion of renewable energy generation, the use of community and heat power networks and the establishment of a community energy fund whilst setting nature targets using the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act. Reform UK said they would simplify and revise the planning system to fast-track permissions for energy projects and the Scottish Conservatives said they would replace the Just Transition Fund with an Affordable Transition Fund. The Greens said they would get Scotland back on track to deliver net zero by 2045, drive down emissions, lead a renewables revolution and ensure the government are held to account on any climate failures. They would also support 20 minute neighbourhoods and would introduce a community right of appeal in planning. The Scottish Liberal Democrats’ manifesto said they would ensure Scotland has high environmental standards, recognise everyone’s right to a healthy environment and take the steps required to achieve net zero in Scotland by 2045. They would also improve cohesion between local development plans and the bodies and utilities relating to them like Transport Scotland and Scottish Water.

These shared priorities within planning and the wider built environment demonstrate a positive understanding from parties of planning’s role in the future of Scotland to deliver the homes, communities and infrastructure that Scotland requires. RTPI Scotland believes this is a strong starting point for our engagement with the Scottish Parliament and new Scottish Government over the next five years. , we intend to continue our conversations, help turn our asks into outcomes, and ensure that any new proposals and policies brought forward by the new Scottish Parliament and Government support planners and the Scottish planning system.