Developer Contributions Supplementary Guidance

Financial contributions towards off-site Green Blue Network proposals enable developments to mitigate an on-site deficiency and achieve policy compliance where it may otherwise not have been possible to do so.  

The Evidence base above has informed the identification of both on-site and off-site proposals for different types of Green Blue Infrastructure that collectively are known as Green Blue Network proposals. These proposals may take the form of completely new provision to the Green Blue Network and/or the enhancement of existing provision. A summary of some of the main types of Green Blue Network proposals is as follows: 

Table 1 of City Plan identifies various Green Blue Network proposals however many of the forthcoming and emerging pieces of work noted in the evidence base section will help identify further proposals.  

An example of this shall be the Council’s next Open Space Strategy (OSS) which will strategically appraise the provision of different forms of open space and green networks across Edinburgh and how different communities are served by each of these. This will involve comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis with a strong focus spatial distribution to ensure robust actions are identified. The OSS will also involve a good level of public and stakeholder engagement to ensure input and scrutiny of its direction and the proposals arising out of it and which contributions may be taken towards.  

Costs for actions in Part 4, Table 1 will be developed, likely as part of other Green Blue Network projects noted in the Evidence section above and will be set out in updates to the Action (Delivery) Programmes.  

The amount of shortfall in on-site provision, where mitigation will be re-provided, and the cost attributable to a development, will be determined on a case-by-case basis involving an assessment of individual development proposals to establish on-site provision and scale of development amongst other matters.  

Edinburgh’s emerging Design Guidance and other work is being produced by the Council and Scottish Government will be setting out further metrics to allow more precise quantification of what level of provision of different types of Green Blue Infrastructure that a development would deliver, as well as an overall metric for Green Blue Infrastructure provision. In turn, these metrics can then allow a more precise quantification of the degree of deficiency that can the inform a more detailed basis for establishing the level of mitigating contributions necessary to make a development acceptable. By bringing these metrics through emerging and future iterations of the Edinburgh Design Guidance then there is the opportunity for consultation on these mechanisms for assessing the level of provision.  

It should be noted that contributions to address a deficiency in one type of Green Bue Infrastructure do not remove the need for on-site provision given the range of types and functions that Green Blue Infrastructure should fulfil. For example, a financial contribution towards a nearby play facility may enable a development to meet the Play Access Standard in the Council’s Open Space Strategy (OSS) however it would not remove the need to meet all other standards relating to other aspects of Green Blue Infrastructure such as biodiversity net gain.