For Decision

Title: Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan – Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2023

Pre­pared by: Dan Har­ris (Plan­ning Manager)

Pur­pose

1. This paper presents the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme (2023) for the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme is an import­ant com­mu­nic­a­tions tool. It is key to sup­port­ing deliv­er­able and people-focussed plans by let­ting stake­hold­ers know when and how they can get involved in the pre­par­a­tion of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and keep them informed of progress.
2. The Park Author­ity must pub­lish, adopt and sub­mit a Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme to Scot­tish Min­is­ters each year. The Board is there­fore being asked to adopt the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Adopt the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2023

Stra­tegic context

1. The Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2019 has brought numer­ous reforms to Scotland’s devel­op­ment plan sys­tem, which are in the pro­cess of being imple­men­ted. A sig­ni­fic­ant mile­stone in this was the adop­tion of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 by Scot­tish Min­is­ters on 13 Feb­ru­ary 2023, fol­low­ing approv­al by the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment in Janu­ary. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 replaced Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 3 and Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy, incor­por­at­ing an updated Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy, con­tain­ing detailed nation­al policy on a num­ber of topics.

2. Unlike its pre­de­cessors, Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 is part of the stat­utory devel­op­ment plan (Fig­ure 1). This means that for any place in Scot­land, the stat­utory devel­op­ment plan con­sists of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4, which cov­ers the whole coun­try, and the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan for the plan­ning author­ity area where the place is.

3. Stra­tegic dir­ec­tion with­in the Nation­al Park is also provided by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022. It sets out the vis­ion and over-arch­ing strategy for man­aging the Nation­al Park, as well as identi­fy­ing pri­or­it­ies for action and an over­all stra­tegic policy frame­work. Fur­ther­more, the Part­ner­ship Plan acts as the Region­al Spa­tial Strategy for the Nation­al Park, which is inten­ded to address stra­tegic devel­op­ment and issues.

4. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment guid­ance states that Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans for Nation­al Parks should be con­sist­ent with the Part­ner­ship Plan and Region­al Spa­tial Strategy. The Part­ner­ship Plan there­fore provides the stra­tegic con­text for the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, and the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan will help to deliv­er a num­ber of the Part­ner­ship Plan’s policies and priorities.
5. At a loc­al level the devel­op­ment plan may be influ­enced by Loc­al Place Plans. These are com­munity-led plans that focus on places with­in loc­al author­it­ies’ areas, which may include par­tic­u­lar neighbourhoods.
6. On 19 May 2023 The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions came into force. All plan­ning author­it­ies have five years from that date to replace their cur­rent Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan with a new style Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. This means the Park Author­ity must pre­pare and adopt a new Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan by no later than May 2028.
7. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme is an import­ant part of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment pre­par­a­tion pro­cess. It is key to sup­port­ing deliv­er­able and people-focussed plans by let­ting stake­hold­ers know when and how they can get involved in the pre­par­a­tion of the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and keep them informed of progress.
8. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme must be pub­lished, adop­ted and sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Min­is­ters each year dur­ing the pre­par­a­tion of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan.

Scope of the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme

1. The key com­pon­ents of the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2023 are its timeline, Par­ti­cip­a­tion State­ment and invit­a­tion for com­munit­ies to pre­pare Loc­al Place Plans.
2. The timetable must set out each stage of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment pre­par­a­tion pro­cess, Identi­fy­ing the years and months in which each stage is expec­ted to take place.
3. The Par­ti­cip­a­tion State­ment sets out when con­sulta­tion on the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan is likely to take place, with whom and its likely form, and the steps to be taken to involve the pub­lic at large. The Park Author­ity has sought the views of com­munity coun­cils and asso­ci­ations and young people, via the Cairngorms Youth Action Team, on the con­tent of the statement.
4. Before pre­par­ing a Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, plan­ning author­it­ies must invite loc­al com­munit­ies to pre­pare Loc­al Place Plans. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme there­fore con­tains an invit­a­tion and will be sent out to com­munity coun­cils and asso­ci­ations. This is sup­por­ted by an invit­a­tion in the July issue of Cairn magazine.

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. The Park Author­ity has a stat­utory duty to adopt and pub­lish the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme in Annexe 1 was pre­pared in accord­ance with Scot­tish Government’s Loc­al devel­op­ment plan­ning guid­ance, which was pub­lished in May 2023.
2. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme sets out the timeline for pre­par­a­tion on the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and a Par­ti­cip­a­tion State­ment that sets out how and when mem­bers of the pub­lic and stake­hold­ers will be con­sul­ted and engaged. Board mem­bers are asked to con­sider these ele­ments and wheth­er they are reas­on­able, appro­pri­ate and proportionate.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. While no risk is posed by the adop­tion of the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme itself, it is recog­nised that there are risks to the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan’s timetable for pre­par­a­tion. In par­tic­u­lar, the times­cales for the gate check and the later exam­in­a­tion, are not con­trolled by the Nation­al Park Author­ity. No plan­ning author­ity has yet reached the gate check stage and there­fore there is sig­ni­fic­ant uncer­tainty about the length of time and resources this stage will take. Fur­ther­more, many plan­ning author­it­ies are pre­par­ing their Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans on sim­il­ar times­cales to the Park Author­ity, which may res­ult in a bot­tle­neck at this stage if Scot­tish Government’s Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion lack the capa­city to meet demand.
2. In addi­tion, cer­tain duties relat­ing to the pre­par­a­tion of Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans fall out­side the remit of the Park Author­ity to deliv­er. For example, Hous­ing Need and Demand Assess­ments, Loc­al Heat and Energy Strategies and Open Space Strategies are the respons­ib­il­ity of Loc­al Author­it­ies to pre­pare and deliv­er, but are needed by the Park Author­ity to inform the pre­par­a­tion of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. While the Park Author­ity works closely with part­ners to help deliv­er these duties, It does not have any dir­ect con­trol over their man­age­ment. There­fore, it is recog­nised that there could be an impact on the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan’s timetable should part­ners face dif­fi­culties in deliv­er­ing these duties.
3. Any delay to the timetable places the tar­get of an adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan with­in five years of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4’s adop­tion at risk. The timeline presen­ted in the Devel­op­ment Plan scheme estim­ates an adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan in May 2027. There is there­fore a mar­gin of an addi­tion­al twelve months in which the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan could be adop­ted and still meet the stat­utory five-year requirement.
4. While a delay in the adop­tion of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan may impact on oth­er areas of Park Author­ity work, for example, by pre­vent­ing staff from work­ing on oth­er pro­jects, the impact on plan­ning decisions only arises if the effect­ive hous­ing land sup­ply with­in the Nation­al Park falls below five years. This could allow for the release of devel­op­ment sites which may not align with cur­rent Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (e.g. they are out­with set­tle­ment bound­ar­ies) or Part­ner­ship Plan. How­ever, the cur­rent Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan has suf­fi­cient land alloc­ated for up to ten years (2031) and his­tor­ic­ally, the effect­ive hous­ing land sup­ply has always been com­fort­ably in excess of five years. The impact of the risk is there­fore con­sidered to be low, though annu­al mon­it­or­ing will need to be car­ried out to assess the situation.
5. The Park Author­ity Board will be kept up-to-date on the pro­gress of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan’s pre­par­a­tion and the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme will be updated and pub­lished annually.

Suc­cess measures

1. At the exam­in­a­tion stage, before con­sid­er­ing the Pro­posed Plan itself, the per­son appoin­ted to carry out the exam­in­a­tion will determ­ine wheth­er the con­sulta­tion and pub­lic involve­ment in the pre­par­a­tion of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan has met or exceeded the require­ments set out in the Par­ti­cip­a­tion State­ment. The exam­in­a­tion will not pro­gress if the plan­ning author­ity is deemed to have failed in this regard.
2. Fol­low­ing the exam­in­a­tion, the meas­ure of suc­cess is the adop­tion of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan by the Park Author­ity Board.

Next steps

1. Once the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme is adop­ted by the Park Author­ity Board, the Park Author­ity will:

a) Pub­lish it on the Park Author­ity website,

b) Place a copy in each pub­lic lib­rary or Loc­al Author­ity office in the Nation­al Park,

c) Email cop­ies to each Com­munity Coun­cil or Asso­ci­ation in the Nation­al Park,

d) Send two cop­ies to Scot­tish Ministers.

1. An update to the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme will be brought to Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in 2024.

Sup­port­ing information

Annex 1 — Draft Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2023