Planning and Architecture

Local Place Plans – next steps

March 22, 2021 by No Comments | Category Planning

Local Place Plans (LPPs) offer the opportunity for a community led, but collaborative, approach to creating great local places. LPPs can support community aspirations on the big challenges for a future Scotland, such as responding to the global climate emergency and tackling inequalities, and help shape local planning policies contained in the Local Development Plan.

The Government is currently consulting on proposals for regulations which will cover their content, preparation, submission and registration. The consultation paper also seeks people’s views on a range of impact assessments.

As with the provisions in the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, we are looking to deliver a light-touch approach in legislation, thus allowing for flexibility to suit local circumstances. With the process for preparing LPPs to be defined largely by the capacity and preferences of the communities themselves, rather than introducing a fixed procedure. This requires a balance between legislation and guidance to be struck, and we are keen to hear whether you think that balance is in the right place.

The proposals are built around a wide range of community-led planning which has been undertaken, and is being undertaken. Examples have been drawn from across Scotland’s communities, including the islands; for example Scalloway Local Place Plan in Shetland and Wester Hailes in the City of Edinburgh.

We are aware that a number of communities already have community-led plans in place and we are interested in people’s views on what scope there may be for these plans to go on to become LPPs within the new statutory planning provisions.

We are inviting responses by 25 June 2021. Due to the Scottish Parliament election and the limitations that places on Scottish Government publicity, we will be focussing our engagement activities after 6 May 2021. In advance of then, you can look at the linked self-read guide,  We will publish more details on consultation and engagement opportunities in May.

In addition, the Government has published a research report / literature review of community-led planning in Scotland. Prepared by the Scottish Community Development Centre and Nick Wright Planning, it provides an evidence base for a draft ‘How to’ Guide aimed at supporting communities in preparing LPPs.

We have published the draft ‘How to’ Guide. We intend to develop this further over the coming months and will publish an online final version when the LPP regulations come into force, planned for the end of the year.

The final version will reflect the full framework of legislation and be an invaluable guide to communities in preparing an LPP.  We want to build on the excellent work so far. So in addition to the current formal consultation on future regulations, we would be interested to hear any thoughts you have on:

  • The contents of the draft Guide, including any additional guidance required;
  • Accessibility of the document’s text / images / language etc;
  • Design features for online and offline use;
  • On-going hosting and maintenance of the Guide’s contents; and
  • Case studies, do you have examples which we can use to illustrate the final Guide?

Please send any thoughts or comments to Graham.Robinson@gov.scot. Whilst there is no formal time limit on this request, we would encourage you to send any comments by 25 June, as with responses to the regulations consultation.

You can keep up-to-date on progress and view all planning reform consultations and legislation at www.transformingplanning.scot/planning-reform/.

If you are interested in hearing more, then please sign up for Planning and architecture news updates.

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