Responding to the Scottish Government's Modernising Planning Appeals consultation document the Scottish Property Federation has added its concerns to those raised by other stakeholders in relation to the propsoed local review bodies that will consider local development planning appeals that are not to be determined by planning officers.  The local review bodies are intended to be formed of three Councillors and supported by officials previously unrelated to the application in question.

SPF fears that in practice it will be difficult to ensure the independence of officials supporting the LRBs in many planning authorities.  SPF is also concerned that planning authoities consider more than simply the number of objections raised in relation to a particular application when deciding whether  to revert to a local review body and instead make a qualitative assessment of objections received.