Local Place Plans
Guidance and tools
Preparing and submitting Local Place Plans is a community-led process.
Guides
The following organisations have produced guidance on how to help your community prepare a Local Place Plan:
- Scottish Government guide to preparing and submitting Local Place Plans
- Planning Aid Scotland Guide for Community Delivery of Local Place Plans
- Scottish Government and partner organisation guide to Local Place Plans
- SCDC Local Place Plans - A guide for communities
- SCDC and Nick Wright Planning How to Guide to Local Place Plans
- The Highland Council Local Place Plan guidance and templates
- The Highland Council Further guidance on Local Place Plan area and Community Body area
- The Highland Council's latest Local Place Plan update
- Historic Environment Scotland Talking About Heritage
- CLS, KPC and WHCT guide to Creating a Local Place Plan: By Communities For Communities
Tools
The following tools, toolkits, and information may help your community prepare a Local Place Plan:
Community engagement
- Place Standard Tool
- Place Standard Tool for Climate, Air Quality, and Children and Young People
- Public Health Scotland Place Standard Tool video
- National Standards for Community Engagement
Community Map Scotland
Mapping assistance is available through the Community Map Scotland tool.
Community councils can get 12 months of free access to the tool by going to Parish Online and using the code cms12 when signing up (select ‘Subscribe’ when prompted, instead of ‘Trial’).
Council information and tools
- Guide to consideration of Gaelic in Local Place Plans - Bilingual Version
- The Highland Council Open Map Data portal datasets for use in a mapping tool
- The Highland Council Programme and Corporate Plan
- Housing Land Audit
- Housing Need and Demand Assessment
- Town Centre Health Checks
Other information and tools
- Scottish Government model governing documents and guidance
- Development Trusts Association Scotland Community Ownership Support Service
- Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation
- Scotland's official statistics
- National Records of Scotland settlement data
- Scottish long term flood hazard and risk information
- Tool for Understanding Scottish Places
- Toolkit for Successful Town Centres
The Development Plan
While Local Place Plans seek to influence the content of the new Local Development Plan, they must have regard to the current national development plan and local development plan for the community in which they are being prepared.
Development plan for Scotland
The development plan for Scotland is contained in the National Planning Framework.
Local development plan for Highland
The local development plan for Highland comprises of four planning policy documents. Our general development policies are contained in the Highland-wide Local Development Plan, which should be read with the Local Development Plan for your area. Our three area local development plans contain the allocations and area-specific development policies for:
Locality Plans
If applicable, a Local Place Plan must have regard for any Locality Plan for its area. To see any Locality Plans for our area, visit the Highland Community Planning Partnership website.
If there is no Locality Plan for your area, you may wish to have regard for the Local Outcome Improvement Plan.
Local Place Plan Examples
The following examples may be useful when preparing a Local Place Plan:
- Documents created by communities in Highland while preparing their Local Place Plan
- Local Place Plans registered by other Local Authorities
Further advice on the preparation of Local Place Plans