Supplementary Guidance

Supplementary Planning Guidance

Supplementary guidance and advice notes are intended for use by the public, developers and planners.  Considering this guidance before you submit a planning application should give you a better understanding of some of the factors that guide the decision making process, and help you to provide the information that we are likely to need to ensure your proposal is line with Council policy.  Ultimately this should make for speedier and more efficient decisions.

The Council produces a variety of planning guidance. Common types include:

• Development briefs or master plans, which provide a detailed explanation of how the Council would like to see particular sites or small areas develop;
• Strategies or frameworks on specific issues, for example guidance on the location of large wind farms;
• Detailed policies, for example on the design of new development;

Where the Council intends that the planning guidance will be Supplementary Guidance forming part of the Development Plan, it ensures that the guidance is derived from the plan, and has been the subject of discussion and engagement. 

Existing planning guidance can be viewed below.  The Council has been preparing a number of these quite recently with the intention that many of them will be statutorily adopted as Supplementary Guidance in due course. Other guidance, including older guidance, may need further revision and consultation to bring it up-to-date and particularly if it is to become Supplementary Guidance. We will update this webpage in due course to further clarify the current status and intended future status of each document.

Current Consultations

Consultations will appear here when relevant.

Statutory Supplementary Guidance

• Developer Contributions: Supplementary Guidance (adopted by Committee, March 2013)
• Flood Risk and Drainage Impact Assessment Supplementary Guidance (adopted by Committee, January 2013)
• Green Networks Supplementary Guidance (adopted by Committee, January 2013)
• Highland Historic Environment Strategy (pdf 3.5mb) (adopted by Committee, January 2013)
• Highland's Statutorily Protected Species Supplementary Guidance (adopted by Committee, March 2013)
• Houses in Multiple Occupation (adopted by Committee, March 2013)
• Housing in the Countryside and Siting and Design (adopted by Committee, March 2013)  
• Inverness City Centre Development Brief (adopted by Committee, March 2013)
• Managing Waste in New Developments Interim Supplementary Guidance (adopted by Committee, March 2013)
• Nigg Development Masterplan (adopted by Committee, March 2013)
• Open Space in New Residential Developments (adopted by Committee, January 2013)
• Physical Constraints Interim Supplementary Guidance (adopted by Committee, March 2013)
• Public Art Strategy: Supplementary Guidance (adopted by Committee, March 2013)
• Sandown Development Brief (adopted by Committee, March 2013)
• Sustainable Design Guide: Supplementary Guidance (adopted by Committee, January 2013)
• Trees, Woodlands and Development Supplementary Guidance (adopted by Committee, January 2013)

Interim Supplementary Guidance

• Dingwall Developer Contributions (pdf 3mb) 
• Onshore Wind Energy: Interim Supplementary Guidance (March 2012)
• Small-Scale Wind Turbine Proposals: Interim Supplementary Guidance (November 2012)

Draft Supplementary Guidance

• Draft Guidance will appear here when relevant.

Development Briefs and Framework Plans

Development Briefs and Framework Plans for particular sites or areas can be found by clicking the relevant area of Highland below.

• Badenoch and Strathspey
• Caithness
• Inverness
• Nairnshire
• Ross and Cromarty East
• Sutherland
• Wester Ross
• West Highland and Islands
  • Fort William Waterfront

Other Planning Advice

Other Planning advice is available here.

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