Glasgow City Council is changing its planning system to allow local communities to have a greater role in the planning process.

At the heart of the new changes is the council's desire for "local people to influence plans at an early stage and a more proportionate method of dealing with planning applications depending on their size and impact".

The council said that national applications, such as the 2014 Commonwealth Games and other major local projects, will be scrutinised in a number of new ways.

They will be subject to pre-application consultation with local communities about twelve weeks before an application is made, which will be the responsibility of the developer.

The time period for deciding national and major applications will be extended from two to four months, while smaller local applications will stay at two months.

Councillor Shaukat Butt, convener of the council's Planning Applications Committee, said: "These changes should ensure that people and communities can get more involved early on in the planning process and that bigger applications get the focus they deserve."