Planning and Architecture

  • Town Planning as a Green Career: Refreshing thoughts for young people

    8th November 2024 by

    This year World Town Planning Day coincides with Green Careers Week 2024. The Careers Week is a series of events aimed at supporting young people to consider the value of learning ‘green’ skills and considering future career path opportunities within the built and natural environments. By focusing on the ‘green’ sector, it highlights the value…

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  • Planning Review Panel Statement

    31st May 2016 by

    Today we have published our planning review report Empowering Planning to Deliver Great Places. The report and further background information about the review is available at We are extremely grateful to all those who took part in the review process, through the call for written evidence, the oral evidence sessions and the online discussion forum….

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  • Upcoming Planning & Architecture News

    23rd March 2016 by

    From 24th March there are restrictions on communication until after May 5, Scottish Parliament Election http://ow.ly/Y4l9R  Here are some of our upcoming changes and projects during this pre-election period. We are seeking comments on our Draft Planning Delivery Advice: Housing and Infrastructure by March 31, 2016 to deliveryadvice@gov.scot. This draft advice has been issued in order to allow for further…

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  • Independent Planning Review Online Discussion Forum

    4th February 2016 by

    UPDATE: Due to an enthusiastic response the online forum will now remain open until midday on 29th February. Thank you for all your contributions so far. Haven’t posted yet? Sign up today and make your views heard. Having your say As part of the on-going review of planning, the independent panel launched a call for…

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  • Planning Decisions

    25th January 2016 by

    Ever wondered what happens when a planning application is notified to Scottish Ministers? Planning Decisions is a small team of civil servants and professional planners who process and assess cases notified to Ministers under Circular 3/2009: Notification of Planning Applications. This brings us into contact with lots of interesting and high profile cases, some big,…

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  • Improved ePlanning portal launches

    13th January 2016 by

    A new eplanning system, launched January 13. 2016, will save applicants and local authorities almost £6m a year. The revamped version of ePlanning Scotland – now ePlanning.scot – lets individuals, architects and agents submit and manage planning applications online, saving millions. The upgrade will help secure the long term future of the service and enable…

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  • Supplementary Guidance on Wind Energy – good example guidance.

    11th January 2016 by

    The Scottish Government were recently issued with a Notice of Intention to Adopt Supplementary Guidance on Wind Energy for South Ayrshire. We were impressed with the content and format of the document and its compliance with national policy, guidance and advice. As such we believe this Supplementary Guidance  to be a good example of how…

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  • Lessons learned from the Aussie housing challenge.

    14th December 2015 by

    Ian Gilzean is Chief Architect within Planning & Architecture Division. In December last year Ian flew out to begin a three-month secondment with Melbourne University and guest blogs to share his experience of working in Australia. In the past 18 months Planning and Architecture Division has seen a great deal of collaboration with the city…

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  • Place standard Launch

    10th December 2015 by

    The new Place Standard tool for Scotland was launched today. Designed to support communities, public, private and third sectors, to work efficiently together, the Place Standard provides a framework to assess the quality of a place. Place Standard has been tested with stakeholders and piloted in communities across Scotland in 2015 and has been developed…

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  • Planning Delivery Advice – Housing and Infrastructure

    1st December 2015 by

    Feedback on Stakeholder Workshops In June 2015 Alex Neil MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights, announced that new advice to improve planning for infrastructure and housing would be published towards the end of the year. http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Scottish-Government-signals-planning-modernisation-19c7.aspx The purpose of the advice is to support the more effective delivery of housing and…

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