Planning and Architecture

  • Greener Gardens

    19th December 2016 by

    Throughout the Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design, Scottish Government Planning & Architecture officials have been working in partnership with Central Scotland Green Network Trust, Taylor Wimpey West Scotland, Abertay University and C+D Associates on an innovative ’Greener Gardens’ project. Together they’ve been looking at how the gardens of new homes can be used to…

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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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  • 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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  • Scotland’s Towns Week…Celebrating Scotland’s towns

    18th November 2015 by

      This week marks Scotland towns week #STW15 – a celebration of Scottish towns centres and the people who work hard to protect them. And this month marks the second anniversary of the Town Centre Action Plan, the plan the Scottish Government published following the year long national review of town centres that concluded in…

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  • Drawing Places

    29th October 2015 by

    Pens were at the ready on 14th October for this year’s Drawing Places skills symposium. This was organised in advance of the Architecture and Design Scotland’s Place Challenge (Arbroath) which is being held this week to identify the issues challenging the role of town centres as sustainable places. The event was held at the Lighthouse,…

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  • Independent Review of Planning – meet the Secretariat

    28th October 2015 by

    The independent panel appointed to undertake the review of Scottish planning met for the first time on 13 October 2015. Planning and Architecture Division are providing support to the panel throughout the process, and there was much for the Secretariat to prepare in advance of the panel meeting. The Secretariat comprises myself and Suzanne Stephen,…

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  • Welcome to our new Planning and Architecture blog

    8th October 2015 by

    Feedback from our stakeholders told us that we needed more informal methods to communicate with them. We have responded to that by committing to a package of service improvements targeted at increasing our digital presence and improving communication. The creation of this blog is part of that wider package and colleagues will use it to regularly…

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