Highland Local Development Plan

Highland Local Development Plan (HLDP)

A New Plan for Highland - Evidence Gathering

We are currently preparing a new local development plan for Highland.

Local development plans shape how places change in the future, including where development should and should not happen.

We are gathering the evidence we believe is relevant and necessary to write the HLDP.

We have drafted our formal Evidence Report, which, when complete and approved by Full Council, will be submitted to Scottish Ministers in 2026. You can find out more by reading our November 2025 and February 2026 committee reports and the Evidence Report chapters.

Finalised Evidence Report Chapters:

1. Introduction
2. Area Profiles and Key Areas of Change
3. Climate Change and Energy
4. Nature and Environment
5. Coastal Development and Aquaculture
6. Flood Risk Management
7. Economy Business Tourism and Productive Places
8. Housing
9. Transport
10. Infrastructure
11. Historic Assets, Brownfield Land and Empty Buildings
12. Design, Wellbeing, Local Living and Placemaking
13. Performance of the Plan

We ran a 'Call for Development Sites' between 31 January and 2 May 2025. Landowners, developers and others have suggested a range of sites that they wish the Council to consider for inclusion in the new HLDP.

Note there is no statutory opportunity to comment on any submission at this stage in the plan process.

We will consider all sites for possible inclusion in the future plan, but won't be deciding on which it proposes to include until early/mid-2027. Thereafter, those sites included by the Council in the Proposed Plan will be subject to a statutory public consultation and objection process.

View suggested sites

We also consulted on our Evidence Papers over the same period.

View our evidence

The evidence documents contained a few factual errors. A list of the corrected errors is available to download.

We are now taking into account the feedback received and are preparing the formal Evidence Report.

The national context for the new HLDP is set out in National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4).

As required by NPF4, we are aiming for the HLDP to be:

• place-based, so that it is relevant, accessible, and useful to people with an interest in their place
• developed in collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders
• based on robust evidence, so that it is deliverable

Local Place Plans

We have prepared advice and guidance for community bodies preparing Local Place Plans, and we continue to check and register these Plans.

Development Plans Newsletter

Our Development Plans Newsletter (January 2025) gives future HLDP stages and timescales. Please note that the committee report linked above provides a revised timetable.

Further engagement opportunities will be announced on this page.