CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 — 6^th Decem­ber 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: ADOP­TION OF THE PLACE PRINCIPLE

Pre­pared by: MUR­RAY FER­GUSON, DIR­ECT­OR OF PLAN­NING AND RUR­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT; ANDREW TEECE, PLAN­NING OFFICER

Pur­pose: To seek the Board’s agree­ment to adopt the Place Prin­ciple as set out at para­graph 3.

Recom­mend­a­tion: That the Board approves the adop­tion of the Place Principle

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ADOP­TION OF THE PLACE PRIN­CIPLE – FOR DECISION

Back­ground and Context

1. In August 2019 the cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary for Com­munit­ies and Loc­al Gov­ern­ment wrote to a range of pub­lic bod­ies across Scot­land encour­aging them to adopt the Place Prin­ciple. The pur­pose of this ini­ti­at­ive is to over­come organ­isa­tion­al and sec­tor­al bound­ar­ies, encour­age bet­ter col­lab­or­a­tion between organ­isa­tions, bet­ter com­munity involve­ment and to improve the impact of com­bined energy, resources and investment.

2. The Place Prin­ciple was developed by Scot­tish Government’s part­ners in the pub­lic and private sec­tors, the third sec­tor and in com­munit­ies to help them devel­op a clear vis­ion for their place.

3. Accord­ing to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Guid­ance’, the Place Prin­ciple says:

   a) We recog­nise that:

    i. Place is where people, location and resources combine to create a sense of identity and purpose, and is at the heart of addressing the needs and realising the full potential of communities. Places are shaped by the way resources, services and assets are directed and used by the people who live in and invest in them.
    ii. A more joined-up, collaborative, and participative approach to services, land and buildings, across all sectors within a place, enables better outcomes for everyone and increased opportunities for people and communities to shape their own lives.
   

   b) The Prin­ciple requests that: All those respons­ible for provid­ing ser­vices and look­ing after assets in a place need to work and plan togeth­er, and with loc­al com­munit­ies, to improve the lives of people, sup­port inclus­ive and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth and cre­ate more suc­cess­ful places.

   c) We com­mit to tak­ing: A col­lab­or­at­ive, place-based approach with a shared pur­pose to sup­port a clear way for­ward for all ser­vices, assets and invest­ments which will max­im­ise the impact of their com­bined resources.

4. Asso­ci­ated with the Place Prin­ciple the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and part­ners have also cre­ated the Place Stand­ard which is a tool to ana­lyse and assess how places work. The pur­pose is to max­im­ize the poten­tial of the phys­ic­al and social envir­on­ment to sup­port health, well­being and a high qual­ity of life. In order to achieve this, it provides a frame­work for: a) eval­u­ation and improve­ment of new and exist­ing places; b) struc­tured con­ver­sa­tions through which com­munit­ies, the pub­lic sec­tor, private sec­tor and third sec­tor work togeth­er to deliv­er high qual­ity places; c) con­sist­ency across Scot­land in the deliv­ery of high qual­ity, sus­tain­able places that pro­mote com­munity well­being, and more pos­it­ive envir­on­ment­al impacts; d) max­im­iz­a­tion of the con­tri­bu­tion of place to redu­cing health inequal­it­ies; and e) con­sid­er­a­tion of social aspects of place along­side phys­ic­al infrastructure.

5. With­in the next few months, the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is due to launch a new web­site about Place and will make avail­able fur­ther tools, guidelines and case studies.

Cur­rent prac­tice in the CNPA

1. In many ways the think­ing behind the Place Prin­ciple is reflec­ted in the jus­ti­fic­a­tion for des­ig­nat­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park – the Park cre­ated a new place-based man­age­ment focus that was con­sidered neces­sary to man­age the area’s com­plex spe­cial man­age­ment needs in a more hol­ist­ic way. The require­ment on Nation­al Park Author­it­ies to pro­duce Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plans is also, fun­da­ment­ally, an approach in line with the Place Principle.

2. The Nation­al Park Author­ity has led and encour­aged place-based plan­ning and pro­ject deliv­ery in many oth­er ele­ments of our work, for example: a) CNPA has worked with Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey and the Marr Area Part­ner­ship to encour­age com­munit­ies to pre­pare com­munity action plans across the Park. More recently the Place Stand­ard tool has been used to refresh and stim­u­late this work. b) The Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject, fun­ded by the Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund, has been tak­ing a place-based approach to Caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion and com­munity involve­ment in the Car­rbridge pilot exer­cise. c) The Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship Pro­ject which is due to be com­plete in Septem­ber 2020 aims to improve the land­scape of a par­tic­u­lar place by deliv­er­ing 20 pro­jects, all with­in Moray, and mostly on the Crown Estate. The pro­ject was foun­ded in a place-based Regen­er­a­tion Strategy that was pre­pared for the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et area in 2011. d) The concept of place has been embed­ded in the forth­com­ing Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 which includes com­munity pro­files and policies, (such as those cov­er­ing design and place-mak­ing) that encour­age a place-based approach to development.

Next Steps

1. If the recom­mend­a­tion is approved, staff will write to Min­is­ters to con­firm that Place Prin­ciple has been adopted.

2. The CNPA already has con­sid­er­able exper­i­ence of tak­ing a place-based approach. There are oppor­tun­it­ies to share this exper­i­ence more widely through case stud­ies and examples.

3. Look­ing for­wards, the new plan­ning legis­la­tion will provide fur­ther oppor­tun­it­ies through encour­aging com­munit­ies to lead on pre­par­ing their own Loc­al Place Plans.

Mur­ray Fer­guson & Andrew Teece Decem­ber 2019 murrayferguson@​cairngorms.​co.​uk andrewteece@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

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‘www.gov.scot/publications/place-principle-introduction