Formal board meeting - paper 2: LDP development scheme - 28 November 2025

Form­al Board Paper 2 28 Novem­ber 2025 Page 1 of 4

For decision

Title: Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan – Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025

Pre­pared by: Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Manager

Pur­pose This paper seeks approv­al of the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025, as set out in Annex 1.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Board is asked to: a) Approve the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025.

Stra­tegic context

1. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme is an import­ant part of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) pre­par­a­tion pro­cess. It out­lines the timetable for pro­du­cing the next LDP and includes a par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment which explains how and when stake­hold­ers will be involved in its production.

2. The Park Author­ity is required to update its Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme every year. The ini­tial Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme for the next LDP was approved by the Board on 23 June 2023, and the first annu­al update was approved on 22 Novem­ber 2024. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025, as set out in Annex 1, rep­res­ents the second annu­al update to the ini­tial Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme.

Scope of the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme

1. The key com­pon­ents of the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme are its timetable and par­ti­cip­a­tion statement.

2. The timetable out­lines the key stages of the LDP pre­par­a­tion pro­cess, identi­fy­ing the years and months in which each stage is expec­ted to take place. In line with

Form­al Board Paper 2 28 Novem­ber 2025 Page 2 of 4

1. rel­ev­ant guid­ance, the timetable presents this inform­a­tion in the format of fin­an­cial year quar­ters. The par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment out­lines when con­sulta­tion on the LDP is expec­ted to take place, with whom and its likely form, and the steps to be under­taken to involve the pub­lic at large. The Park Author­ity sought the views of Com­munity Coun­cils / Asso­ci­ations and young people, via the Cairngorms Youth Action Team, on the con­tent of the par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment when the ini­tial Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme was pre­pared in 2023. There are no changes to the con­tent of the par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment in the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025. How­ever, the times­cales for under­tak­ing some of the con­sulta­tion activ­it­ies have been amended to reflect the updated timetable for pre­par­ing the LDP.

Updates to the LDP timetable

1. The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2023 state that if the timetable included in an updated Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme dif­fers from the timetable in the pre­vi­ous ver­sion, the plan­ning author­ity must identi­fy the changes and the reas­ons for them.

2. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025 con­tains amend­ments to the timetable in the pre­vi­ous Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme. The main reas­on for these changes is a great­er volume of work, and there­fore more time taken, to pro­duce the Evid­ence Report than was pre­vi­ously anti­cip­ated. This addi­tion­al work has been under­taken in response to ini­tial feed­back from key stake­hold­ers and based on the recent exper­i­ences of oth­er loc­al plan­ning author­it­ies at the Evid­ence Report ​‘gat­echeck’ stage. The addi­tion­al time taken to pro­duce the Evid­ence Report has knock-on implic­a­tions for the tim­ing of sub­sequent stages of plan production.

3. The times­cales for pub­lish­ing the LDP have also been updated to take account of the timetable for pre­par­a­tion of the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP), as approved by the Board on 26 Septem­ber 2025. The Part­ner­ship Plan sets the stra­tegic con­text for the LDP, and it is there­fore import­ant that con­sulta­tion on the LDP takes place after con­sulta­tion on the Part­ner­ship Plan.

Form­al Board Paper 2 28 Novem­ber 2025 Page 3 of 4

1. Scot­tish Min­is­ters have indic­ated that they expect all plan­ning author­it­ies to have a new LDP in place by around May 2028. The updated timetable con­tin­ues to meet this expectation.

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. The Park Author­ity has a stat­utory duty to adopt and pub­lish the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme. The Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025 set out in Annex 1 was pre­pared in accord­ance with Scot­tish Government’s Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Guid­ance, which was pub­lished in May 2023.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. While no risk is posed by the adop­tion of the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme itself, there are risks to the LDP’s timetable for preparation.

2. In par­tic­u­lar, there remain uncer­tain­ties around the volume and nature of inform­a­tion required for the Evid­ence Report to be con­sidered suf­fi­cient by the Scot­tish Government’s Divi­sion for Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals (DPEA) dur­ing the gat­echeck pro­cess. At the time of writ­ing this paper, DPEA had issued 19 form­al gat­echeck decisions on the Evid­ence Reports sub­mit­ted by oth­er plan­ning author­it­ies. Of these, only sev­en Evid­ence Reports (37%) were found to be suf­fi­cient and 12 (63%) were found to be insuf­fi­cient and returned to the rel­ev­ant plan­ning author­it­ies for fur­ther work.

3. Where an Evid­ence Report is returned, the plan­ning author­ity is required to carry out a range of tasks to bring it to suf­fi­ciency. This may include the need to redraft sec­tions of the report, gath­er addi­tion­al evid­ence, com­mis­sion addi­tion­al stud­ies and carry out fur­ther engage­ment, as well as the stat­utory demo­crat­ic pro­cesses. The revised ver­sion of the Evid­ence Report must then be resub­mit­ted to the DPEA for a fur­ther gat­echeck. While the delay caused in the pre­par­a­tion of the LDP in such cases will be depend­ent on the spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances, the delay caused in all cases will be sev­er­al months.

4. It should also be noted that the times­cales for the gat­echeck of the Evid­ence Report and the later exam­in­a­tion of the Pro­posed LDP are out­side the dir­ect con­trol of the Park Authority.

Form­al Board Paper 2 28 Novem­ber 2025 Page 4 of 4

1. Any sig­ni­fic­ant delay to the timetable is likely to present a risk to the abil­ity to meet Scot­tish Min­is­ters’ expect­a­tions of hav­ing a new LDP in place by around May 2028. An intern­al pro­gramme board has been estab­lished to co-ordin­ate the devel­op­ment of the NPPP and the LDP. This will mon­it­or and man­age the above risks inso­far as it is pos­sible. The Board will be kept up to date on the pro­gress of the LDP’s pre­par­a­tion and the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme will con­tin­ue to be updated annually.

Suc­cess measures

1. Adop­tion of the new LDP by the Park Author­ity Board and its sub­sequent delivery.

Next steps

1. Once the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025 is approved by the Board, cop­ies of it will be: α) Pub­lished on the Park Authority’s web­site. b) Placed in each pub­lic lib­rary and loc­al author­ity office in the Nation­al Park. c) Emailed to each Com­munity Coun­cil and Com­munity Asso­ci­ation in the Nation­al Park. d) Emailed to Scot­tish Ministers.

Sup­port­ing information

1. Annex 1 – Pro­posed Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025

Dan Har­ris 07 Novem­ber 2025 danharris@​cairngorms.​co.​uk