4 Feb 2022: Local Place Plans – Local Place Plans offer communities the opportunity to develop proposals for their local area, expressing their aspirations and ambitions for future change. Legislation on the preparation, submission and registration of Local Place Plans came into force on 22 January. The Scottish Government has prepared a Circular to accompany the legislation - Planning circular 1/2022: Local Place Plans - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). Additional resources to support their development will be published shortly. You will be able to find these resources at www.ourplace.scot in the coming weeks.

OurPlace website – the OurPlace website was launched on 20 January.  It includes information, tools and resources to help support the development of places and services that improve our health, our prosperity, our quality of life and protect our environment.

Consultations – community councils may be interested in three current consultations from the Scottish Government.

Draft National Planning Framework 4 - NPF4 will, when adopted, set out the Scottish Governments priorities and policies for the planning system up to 2045. Further resources are available at www.transformingplanning.scot.  

Local Development Plan Regulations and Guidance -  seeks views on the secondary legislative requirements and the draft guidance on implementing the future local development plan system. 

Open Space Strategies and Play Sufficiency Assessments - there are new duties on planning authorities to prepare and publish an Open Space Strategy, and to assess the sufficiency of play opportunities in their area for children. Scottish Ministers have powers to prepare regulations and this consultation paper discusses the proposed provisions and seeks views on both sets of draft regulations.

The Government is inviting comments on the three consultations by 31 March 2022.