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Local living and 20 minute neighbourhoods - Engagement version

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Top­ic: Loc­al liv­ing and 20 minute neighbourhoods

Engage­ment ver­sion – August 2025

Require­ments addressed in this section

Table 1 Inform­a­tion required by the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997, as amended, regard­ing the issue addressed in this section.

Sec­tionRequire­ment
Sec­tion 15(5)(a)The prin­cip­al phys­ic­al, cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, social, built her­it­age and envir­on­ment­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the district.
Sec­tion 15(5)©The size, com­pos­i­tion, health and dis­tri­bu­tion of the pop­u­la­tion of the district.
Sec­tion 15(2A)A state­ment of the plan­ning authority’s policies and pro­pos­als as to the pro­vi­sion of pub­lic conveniences.
Sec­tion 15(2B)A state­ment of the plan­ning authority’s policies and pro­pos­als as to the pro­vi­sion of water refill locations.
Sec­tion 264AIn the exer­cise, with respect to any land in a Nation­al Park, of any power under the plan­ning Acts, spe­cial atten­tion shall be paid to the desirab­il­ity of exer­cising the power con­sist­ently with the adop­ted Nation­al Park Plan.

Links to evidence

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Sum­mary of evidence

Policy con­text

Nation­al Per­form­ance Framework

The Scot­tish Government’s Nation­al Per­form­ance Frame­work sets out elev­en Nation­al Out­comes that aim to get every­one in Scot­land work­ing togeth­er, includ­ing ​‘nation­al and loc­al gov­ern­ment, busi­nesses, vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions and people liv­ing in Scot­land’. The out­come rel­ev­ant to liv­ing loc­ally and 20-minute neigh­bour­hoods is communities.

The Nation­al Out­come for Com­munit­ies sets out the fol­low­ing vision:

‘Our com­munit­ies are pleas­ant places to live where every­one has a warm, appro­pri­ate, effi­cient and afford­able home. We value excel­lent and innov­at­ive design and are com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able plan­ning and transport…’

‘Our older people are happy and ful­filled and Scot­land is seen as the best place in the world to grow older. We are care­ful to ensure no-one is isol­ated, lonely or lives in poverty or poor hous­ing. We respect the desire to live inde­pend­ently and provide the neces­sary sup­port to do so where pos­sible. We recog­nise that older people have par­tic­u­lar needs around fin­an­cial advice, mobil­ity and trans­port, home improve­ments, heat­ing, tech­no­logy and the inter­net which require addi­tion­al support.’

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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This out­come is dir­ectly linked to the Scot­tish Government’s response to address­ing five United Nations Sus­tain­able Goals, the most rel­ev­ant to hous­ing being Afford­able and Clean Energy (7), Reduce Inequal­it­ies (10) and Sus­tain­able Cit­ies and Com­munit­ies (11).

Achiev­ing Car Use Reduc­tion in Scot­land: A Renewed Policy State­ment (2025)

The Scot­tish Government’s 2025 renewed policy state­ment con­firms that they remain com­mit­ted to redu­cing the reli­ance on cars, but that the tar­get to reduce car kilo­metres by 20% by 2030 needs to be revised. No new tar­get is set, but the state­ment advises that the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment ​‘will revise the exist­ing car use reduc­tion tar­get, informed by the advice of the UK Cli­mate Change Com­mit­tee (CCC) and oth­er rel­ev­ant evid­ence, to devel­op a new, longer-term tar­get which will sup­port our net zero target’.

The state­ment con­tin­ues to identi­fy that the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment needs to cre­ate a policy land­scape of both trans­port and non-trans­port policies to enable people to adopt the fol­low­ing four sus­tain­able travel beha­viours each time they plan a trip:

  1. Redu­cing the need to travel
  2. Liv­ing well locally
  3. Switch­ing modes
  4. Com­bin­ing or shar­ing car trips.

The policy state­ment con­tin­ues to say that liv­ing well loc­ally is par­tic­u­larly import­ant in urb­an and sub­urb­an areas as well as towns and vil­lages – ​“access­ing goods, ser­vices, amen­it­ies and social con­nec­tions loc­ally bene­fits loc­al eco­nom­ies and helps revital­ise communities”.

The state­ment also con­tin­ues to recog­nise that there is a high level of car depend­ency in rur­al areas, and car use will remain a facet of rur­al life. A broad­er sum­mary of the renewed policy guid­ance is provided in the Sus­tain­able trans­port top­ic paper¹.

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 came into force in Feb­ru­ary 2023 and is the long-term Nation­al Spa­tial Strategy for Scot­land. For the first time it con­tains a set of plan­ning policies that form part of the stat­utory devel­op­ment plan.

¹ See: https://​cairngormsldp​.com​mon​place​.is/​e​n​-​G​B​/​p​r​o​p​o​s​a​l​s​/​s​u​s​t​a​i​n​a​b​l​e​-​t​r​a​n​s​p​o​r​t​-​s​urvey Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Loc­al liv­ing is one of six spa­tial prin­ciples through which Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 aims to plan Scotland’s places. It states that the Scot­tish gov­ern­ment will:

‘sup­port loc­al live­ab­il­ity and improve com­munity health and well­being by ensur­ing that people can eas­ily access ser­vices, green­space, learn­ing, work and leis­ure locally.’

A second over­arch­ing spa­tial prin­ciple is rur­al revital­isa­tion. This prin­ciple encour­ages sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in rur­al areas and recog­nises the need for the Scot­tish gov­ern­ment to grow and sup­port urb­an and rur­al com­munit­ies together.

Rur­al revital­isa­tion is also a Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 cross-cut­ting out­come. Page 18 explains that Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4’s strategy and policies sup­port devel­op­ment that helps to retain and increase the pop­u­la­tion of rur­al areas of Scot­land and recog­nises that policy con­cepts such as loc­al liv­ing (Policy 15), includ­ing 20-minute neigh­bour­hoods, need to recog­nise vary­ing spa­tial pat­terns and the par­tic­u­lar char­ac­ter­ist­ics and chal­lenges of dif­fer­ent areas² when apply­ing the prin­ciples in practice.

Policy 15 Loc­al liv­ing and 20-minute neigh­bour­hoods requires loc­al plan­ning author­it­ies to use the Place Prin­ciple to cre­ate con­nec­ted and com­pact neigh­bour­hoods where people can meet the major­ity of their daily needs. The policy out­comes recog­nise that places need to be planned to improve loc­al liv­ing in a way that reflects loc­al cir­cum­stances, and that new and exist­ing com­munit­ies need to be planned togeth­er – with homes and key loc­al infra­struc­ture (schools, com­munity centres, shops, green­spaces, health and social care, digit­al and sus­tain­able trans­port links).

Policy 15(a) requires devel­op­ment pro­pos­als to con­trib­ute to loc­al liv­ing. To estab­lish this, con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to the exist­ing set­tle­ment pat­tern and the level and qual­ity of inter­con­nectiv­ity of the pro­posed devel­op­ment with the sur­round­ing area. This includes con­sid­er­ing loc­al access to – sus­tain­able modes of trans­port; employ­ment; shop­ping; health and social care facil­it­ies; edu­ca­tion facil­it­ies and oppor­tun­it­ies; open space; toi­lets; and afford­able, access­ible and diverse hous­ing options.

The Scot­tish government’s ​‘loc­al devel­op­ment plan­ning guid­ance’ (May 2023) provides fur­ther explan­a­tion on what loc­al devel­op­ment plans are expec­ted to do. It advises that, loc­al devel­op­ment plans should sup­port loc­al liv­ing through the spa­tial strategy and

² The import­ance of this issue is high­lighted by the fact that the Scot­tish government’s Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Guid­ance spe­cific­ally bul­let points this issue when advising what inform­a­tion is likely to be required to be taken into account in a loc­al liv­ing and 20 minute neigh­bour­hood evid­ence base. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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land alloc­a­tions. The approach should take account of loc­al con­text, con­sider the vary­ing set­tle­ment pat­terns and reflect the char­ac­ter­ist­ics and chal­lenges faced by each place. It advises, on page 59, that the approach to loc­al liv­ing and 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods is flex­ible and that it can be adap­ted to sup­port com­munit­ies in ways that best meet their needs and cap­it­al­ise on loc­al assets. It explains that a robust under­stand­ing of the cur­rent cir­cum­stances of a place is essen­tial to its realisation.

It sug­gests, on page 126, that plan­ning author­it­ies may sup­port loc­al liv­ing by tak­ing account of:

  • Encour­aging a mix of uses which can sup­port loc­al liv­ing and 20 minute neighbourhoods.
  • Dens­ity or hubs or con­cen­tra­tions of ser­vices and facil­it­ies (wheth­er based around high streets, centres, or trans­port inter­changes) which can form the heart of a centre sup­port­ing loc­al liv­ing and 20 minute neighbourhoods.
  • Access to loc­al employ­ment; facil­it­at­ing new ways of work­ing, home­work­ing, and com­munity hubs.
  • Access to digit­al infra­struc­ture and services.
  • His­tor­ic, cul­tur­al and her­it­age envir­on­ment and fea­tures, nature and the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment and features.
  • Oppor­tun­it­ies for com­munity wealth building.
  • Exist­ing build­ings includ­ing vacant prop­er­ties and build­ings at risk which can be repur­posed or reused, in line with cir­cu­lar eco­nomy principles.
  • Plan­ning hous­ing land alloc­a­tions along­side or togeth­er with every­day loc­al com­munity infra­struc­ture includ­ing schools, com­munity centres, green­spaces, loc­al shops and health­care to sig­ni­fic­antly reduce the need to travel by private car.
  • Ret­ro­fit­ting new com­munity infra­struc­ture into areas which are heav­ily depend­ent on the car, for example by high­light­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for new loc­al facil­it­ies close to homes or by pri­or­it­ising new act­ive travel routes.
  • Pro­vi­sion of walk­ing, wheel­ing and cyc­ling infra­struc­ture. Routes should be dir­ect, access­ible, safe and pleas­ant to encour­age great­er levels of use.
  • Design led approaches to incor­por­at­ing blue green infra­struc­ture into exist­ing and new neighbourhoods.
  • Ensur­ing access to loc­al high qual­ity out­door spaces for play, social­ising, recre­ation and sport.

It also notes that the Act requires the loc­al devel­op­ment frame­work to include a state­ment of policies and pro­pos­als for the pro­vi­sion of pub­lic con­veni­ences and that this may take into con­sid­er­a­tion that pub­lic con­veni­ences are a vital facil­ity for loc­al people and vis­it­ors. It sug­gests that this approach could use­fully align with policies Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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relat­ing to loc­al liv­ing. The Act also requires loc­al devel­op­ment plans to include a state­ment of policies and pro­pos­als for the pro­vi­sion of water refill locations.

Policy 13 Sus­tain­able trans­port, requires loc­al devel­op­ment plans to take a place-based approach to con­sider how to reduce car-dom­in­ance. It advises that con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to loc­al liv­ing and 20 minute neighbourhoods.

Policy 16 Qual­ity homes, requires the loc­a­tion of where new homes are alloc­ated should be con­sist­ent with loc­al liv­ing, includ­ing, where rel­ev­ant, 20 minute neighbourhoods.

Policy 27 City, town, loc­al and com­mer­cial centres requires loc­al devel­op­ment plans to identi­fy a net­work of centres that reflect the prin­ciples of 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods and the town centre vision.

The fol­low­ing Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work policies are lis­ted as key con­nec­tions to Policy 15 and are rel­ev­ant to this evid­ence base:

Sus­tain­able Places Policy 1. Tack­ling the cli­mate and nature crises Policy 2. Cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adapt­a­tion Policy 13. Sus­tain­able transport

Live­able Places Policy 14. Design, qual­ity and place Policy 16. Qual­ity homes Policy 18. Infra­struc­ture first Policy 20. Blue and green infra­struc­ture Policy 21. Play, recre­ation and sport

Pro­duct­ive Places Policy 25. Com­munity wealth build­ing Policy 26. City, town, loc­al and com­mer­cial centres Policy 28. Retail

Also rel­ev­ant is Annex D, with sets out six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places. These qual­it­ies are:

  • Healthy (design­ing for lifelong well­being, healthy and act­ive life­styles, access­ib­il­ity and inclu­sion, social con­nectiv­ity, and envir­on­ment­ally pos­it­ive places)

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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  • Pleas­ant (design­ing for pos­it­ive social inter­ac­tions, pro­tec­tion from the ele­ments, con­nect­ing with nature, vari­ety and qual­ity of play and recre­ation spaces, and enjoyment)
  • Con­nec­ted (design­ing for act­ive travel, con­nectiv­ity, con­veni­ent con­nec­tions, and ped­es­tri­an experience)
  • Dis­tinct­ive (design­ing for scale, built form, and sense of place)
  • Sus­tain­able (design­ing for trans­ition to net-zero, cli­mate resi­li­ence and nature recov­ery, act­ive loc­al eco­nomy, and com­munity and loc­al living)
  • Adapt­able (design­ing for qual­ity and func­tion, longev­ity and resi­li­ence, and long- term maintenance)

Annex D also high­lights the import­ance of the Place Stand­ard Tool, which con­tains 14 themes that sup­port the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places set out above.

Loc­al Liv­ing and 20 Minute Neigh­bour­hood Guid­ance (2024)

This Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment guid­ance sup­ports Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Policy 15. Plan­ning author­it­ies are expec­ted to con­sider how the guid­ance can be applied in a pro­por­tion­ate and place-based way, and to use their judge­ment in decid­ing which com­pon­ents of the advice are rel­ev­ant locally.

The guid­ance explains that loc­al liv­ing provides people with the oppor­tun­ity to meet the major­ity of their daily needs with­in a reas­on­able dis­tance of their home and is centred on sup­port­ing people to ​‘live well loc­ally’. It explains that the 20 minute neigh­bour­hood concept is one of many ways to sup­port loc­al living.

It advises that that many exist­ing places already sup­port loc­al liv­ing and some may require change. It notes that this change – through place­mak­ing – is incre­ment­al and can take a while to build a thriv­ing and vibrant place.

It also advises that effect­ive com­munity engage­ment is core to these approaches, at the start of a pro­cess and throughout.

Part 1 of the guid­ance explains that research tells us that loc­al liv­ing can sup­port pos­it­ive out­comes around:

  • Cli­mate action — through cut­ting emis­sions, improv­ing air qual­ity and cre­at­ing greenspace.
  • Redu­cing health inequal­it­ies- through access­ible access to amen­it­ies and facil­it­ies that meet the needs of the loc­al pop­u­la­tion such as good homes, edu­ca­tion, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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  • child­care, access to healthy and afford­able food, feel­ing safe, com­munity cohe­sion and pro­tec­tion from pol­lu­tion, flood­ing and excess heat and cold.
  • Improved loc­al eco­nomy – through focus­ing activ­ity in loc­al centres, encour­aging new enter­prise and com­munity wealth building.
  • Improved live­ab­il­ity and qual­ity of life ‑through cre­at­ing places that are wel­com­ing and encour­age interaction.

The guid­ance advises that loc­al liv­ing policy is com­plex and inter­linked, but that it ties back to Scotland’s Nation­al Per­form­ance Frame­work and the United Nations Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals. Spe­cif­ic ref­er­ences are made to Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (2023) and Cre­at­ing Places (2013).

Loc­al liv­ing responds to the place con­text and the fact that places are indi­vidu­al and unique with their own his­tory, char­ac­ter­ist­ics and iden­tity. The guid­ance stresses the import­ance of the Place Prin­ciple, which was adop­ted by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment in April 2019 to encour­age col­lab­or­a­tion and com­munity involve­ment and pro­mote a shared under­stand­ing of place. The prin­ciple requires all those respons­ible for provid­ing ser­vices and look­ing after assets in a place to work and plan togeth­er, and with loc­al com­munit­ies, to improve the lives of people, sup­port growth and cre­ate more suc­cess­ful places. This means under­stand­ing the needs, aspir­a­tions and interests of a com­munity as well as its phys­ic­al, social, cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic context.

Engage­ment with com­munit­ies is integ­ral to the place prin­ciple and the guid­ance sets out the sev­en nation­al stand­ards for com­munity engage­ment – inclu­sion; sup­port; plan­ning; work­ing togeth­er; meth­ods; com­mu­nic­a­tion; and impact.

The rur­al and island con­text is recog­nised, not­ing that it is pos­sible to sup­port loc­al liv­ing through plan­ning for con­nec­ted, attract­ive, sus­tain­able places that respect the char­ac­ter and con­text of rur­al set­ting. It sug­gests that where pop­u­la­tions are dis­trib­uted more widely, a net­worked approach can sup­port loc­al liv­ing. It refers to the Liv­ing Well Loc­ally 20 minute Com­munit­ies in the High­lands and Islands report, com­mis­sioned by High­lands and Islands Trans­port Part­ner­ship and Sus­trans (2022), which is sum­mar­ised in this evid­ence report.

The import­ance of infra­struc­ture for loc­al liv­ing is explained, par­tic­u­larly trans­port infra­struc­ture (act­ive travel and pub­lic trans­port), but also the loc­a­tion of new hous­ing and anchor insti­tu­tions (those that are rooted in place and bring about mul­tiple bene­fits for a com­munity, such as hos­pit­als, col­leges, police and loc­al author­it­ies). Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Part 2 of the guid­ance explains what loc­al liv­ing looks like for Scot­land, set­ting out that the aim of loc­al liv­ing is to provide every­one with loc­al, sus­tain­able and equit­able access to the key facil­it­ies and ser­vices required daily.

It defines daily needs and those required for daily liv­ing and recog­nises that what these needs are will be quite dif­fer­ent is dis­persed rur­al and islands com­munit­ies from in lar­ger towns or cit­ies. It advises that some that there some uni­ver­sal daily needs, such as the need to access good qual­ity work, afford­able and healthy food, sus­tain­able trans­port, edu­ca­tion, train­ing and health and social care ser­vices, to par­ti­cip­ate in leis­ure and cul­tur­al activ­it­ies, spend time out­doors, and access loc­al shops, irre­spect­ive of the set­tle­ment size and location.

It notes that the qual­ity of ser­vices is as import­ant as the quant­ity avail­able and under­lines the import­ance of com­munity engage­ment and the gath­er­ing of qual­it­at­ive data.

The guid­ance intro­duces the Loc­al Liv­ing Frame­work and explains how to use it. The Loc­al Liv­ing Frame­work provides a struc­ture to con­sider how loc­al liv­ing is, or can be, sup­por­ted in a place. It is struc­tured around 14 themes, with five over­arch­ing cat­egor­ies. The frame­work can help form the basis for engage­ment, ana­lys­is and plan­ning and design work to deliv­er loc­al liv­ing. The Loc­al Liv­ing Frame­work aligns with the Place Stand­ard³ tool and the Place and Well­being Outcomes4.

The five cat­egor­ies and 14 themes are:

Move­ment

  • Mov­ing around (con­veni­ent, safe and inclus­ive walk­ing, wheel­ing and cycling).
  • Pub­lic trans­port (effi­cient, afford­able and integrated).
  • Traffic and park­ing (redu­cing the dom­in­ance of vehicles).

Space

  • Streets and spaces (attract­ive, mul­ti­func­tion and designed for all users).
  • Nat­ur­al space (inclus­ive access with nature-rich nat­ur­al fea­tures and forms).
  • Play and recre­ation (loc­al access to safe and attract­ive sport, cul­ture and leisure).

³ Place Stand­ard tool | Our Place: https://www.ourplace.scot/tool 4 Place and Well­being Out­comes | Improve­ment Ser­vice: https://​www​.improve​ment​ser​vice​.org​.uk/​p​r​o​d​u​c​t​s​-​a​n​d​-​s​e​r​v​i​c​e​s​/​p​l​a​n​n​i​n​g​-​a​n​d​-​p​l​a​c​e​-​b​a​s​e​d​-​a​p​p​r​o​a​c​h​e​s​/​p​l​a​n​n​i​n​g​-​f​o​r​-​p​l​a​c​e​-​p​r​o​g​r​a​m​m​e​/​p​l​a​c​e​-​a​n​d​-​w​e​l​l​b​e​i​n​g​-​o​u​t​comes Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Resources

  • Sup­port and ser­vices (edu­ca­tion, health, wor­ship, sport and cul­tur­al activity).
  • Work and loc­al eco­nomy (employ­ment, train­ing and workspaces).
  • Hous­ing and com­munity (a vari­ety of hous­ing con­nec­ted to services).
  • Social inter­ac­tion (indoor and out­door com­munity spaces and hos­pit­al­ity venues).

Civic

  • Iden­tity and belong­ing (import­ance of build­ings, streets and nat­ur­al features).
  • Feel­ing safe (per­cep­tion of safety and fos­ter­ing of trust through place).

Stew­ard­ship

  • Care and main­ten­ance (how well a place is looked after).
  • Influ­ence and sense of con­trol (inclus­ive par­ti­cip­a­tion in decision-making).

Part 3 of the guid­ance recom­mends three steps to deliv­er loc­al living:

  1. Under­stand­ing context.
  2. Col­lab­or­ate, plan, design.
  3. Imple­ment and review.

It notes that it will most often be part of an incre­ment­al approach, aimed at achiev­ing a long-term vis­ion for a place.

Under­stand­ing con­text is recog­nised as a role the loc­al devel­op­ment plan under­takes as part of the evid­ence gath­er­ing pro­cess. This report seeks to sum­mar­ise nation­al advice on the pro­cess and legis­lat­ive require­ments. This is mainly set out in Nation­al Policy Frame­work 4 and the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Guid­ance. The loc­al liv­ing and 20 minute guid­ance high­lights that both quant­it­at­ive and qual­it­at­ive data can be help­ful to under­stand the con­text of our places, so that loc­al views can be con­sidered along­side map­ping, stat­ist­ics and num­bers. It provides detailed advice on the type of data that can be util­ized, which is sum­mar­ised as follows:

  • Quant­it­at­ive data – map­ping of facil­it­ies, ser­vices and amen­it­ies includ­ing wheth­er they can be accessed with­in ​‘reas­on­able dis­tance using act­ive and sus­tain­able travel modes, and at times that are con­veni­ent’. It notes that a 20 minute jour­ney time should be applied pro­por­tion­ately, accord­ing to loc­al con­text and circumstances.
  • Qual­it­at­ive data – gath­er­ing the views of the loc­al com­munity, busi­nesses and ser­vice pro­viders. Tools such as the Place Stand­ard and oth­er com­munity engage­ment pro­cesses are import­ant. It should assess how good facil­it­ies are, not just if they exist and where they are loc­ated. Pre­vi­ously col­lated com­munity views Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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are import­ant – for example with­in com­munity action plans and pre­vi­ous loc­al devel­op­ment plan consultations.

The import­ance of col­lab­or­a­tion is high­lighted, with the need to work across sec­tors, organ­isa­tions and loc­al author­ity depart­ments dur­ing plan and design stages. This is needed to devel­op the evid­ence base which will inform the plan. Loc­al place plans will be import­ant con­sid­er­a­tions in com­munity-led place­mak­ing initiatives.

How to map a 20-minute neigh­bour­hood: data and meth­ods 2025

The Improve­ment Ser­vice pub­lished a step-by-step tech­nic­al guide in April 2025 on map­ping and ana­lys­ing 20-minute neigh­bour­hoods in Scot­land. The guid­ance is designed to sup­port plan­ners, geo­spa­tial ana­lysts, and loc­al author­it­ies in assess­ing and pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able, access­ible com­munit­ies. The guide draws on best prac­tices from across Scot­land, includ­ing innov­at­ive meth­ods developed and applied by High­land Coun­cil. It provides a detailed, step-by-step approach to con­duct­ing a 20-minute neigh­bour­hood net­work ana­lys­is using Arc­GIS Pro.

Key fea­tures of the guid­ance include:

  • Links to rel­ev­ant data sources to help you get started.
  • Prac­tic­al advice on con­duct­ing net­work analyses.
  • Recom­mend­a­tions for pro­du­cing mean­ing­ful and action­able ana­lyt­ic­al outputs.
  • A frame­work for assess­ing access to a diverse range of facil­it­ies and ser­vices in an integ­rated and hol­ist­ic way.

The primary aim of this guid­ance is to sup­port plan­ning author­it­ies in meet­ing the loc­al liv­ing require­ments of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 by offer­ing a robust start­ing point for data and meth­ods that can be tailored to loc­al contexts.

The guid­ance is based on the meth­od­o­logy developed by High­land Coun­cil, which, the guid­ance advises, serves as an example of best prac­tice in assess­ing access to a diverse range of facil­it­ies and ser­vices in an integ­rated way.

High­land Council’s mod­el uses a hexagon­al grid to meas­ure access to facil­it­ies and uses a weight­ing sys­tem to reflect the import­ance of dif­fer­ent kinds of facil­it­ies. For example, people may vis­it a shop most days and con­sider it essen­tial to their daily life. This facil­ity can be giv­en a high­er value than a café so that neigh­bour­hoods that have a shop, but no café, would score high­er than a neigh­bour­hood with a café and no shop. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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The guid­ance provides a sug­ges­ted list of facil­it­ies to include along with poten­tial weight­ings. The list and the weight­ings are based on the work of High­land Coun­cil and West Dun­bar­ton­shire Coun­cil. The guid­ance encour­ages loc­al author­it­ies to adapt or expand the list accord­ing to loc­al context.

The guid­ance does advise that ​‘the concept of 20-minute neigh­bour­hoods is typ­ic­ally urb­an-focused and may not be suit­able for all con­texts, par­tic­u­larly rur­al areas with low or sparse populations’.

It goes on to advise that ​‘for rur­al com­munit­ies, with their dis­persed pop­u­la­tions and vast geo­graph­ic areas, the ana­lys­is may have lim­ited value. A prac­tic­al start­ing point for identi­fy­ing suit­able loc­a­tions is to focus on set­tle­ments with a pop­u­la­tion of 500 or more, as iden­ti­fied by the Pop­u­la­tion Estim­ates for Set­tle­ments and Loc­al­it­ies in Scot­land. This threshold can be adjus­ted to suit spe­cif­ic con­texts; for example, focus­ing on set­tle­ments with pop­u­la­tions of 1,000 or more may be more appro­pri­ate in cer­tain areas’.

Imple­ment­ing 20 Minute Neigh­bour­hoods in Plan­ning Policy and Prac­tice 2021

This policy brief­ing paper was pro­duced by the Roy­al Town Plan­ning Insti­tute in 2021. It focuses on the role plan­ning policy and prac­tice and place-based part­ner­ships can have in deliv­er­ing the concept 20 minute neigh­bour­hood concept in Scot­land. It recog­nises that loc­al devel­op­ment plan pre­par­a­tion needs to be informed by a robust and up-to- date evid­ence base and high­lights research in rela­tion to dens­ity, trans­port, loc­al ser­vices and open space strategies, which is sum­mar­ised below.

Dens­ity Com­pact set­tle­ment pat­terns help to make more effi­cient use of exist­ing trans­port infra­struc­ture. High­er dens­it­ies can provide a crit­ic­al mass of pop­u­la­tion to sup­port ser­vices, pro­ductiv­ity, pub­lic health and social inter­ac­tion, as well as reduce trans­port emis­sions. it is estim­ated that an aver­age dens­ity of at least 65 dwell­ings per hec­tare may be required in new devel­op­ments, although this could be high­er in some areas.

Trans­port Bet­ter integ­ra­tion of trans­port and land use plan­ning is a key policy tool in deliv­er­ing 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods. Des­pite a strong policy steer, car traffic is increas­ing in Scot­land and traffic is the largest single con­trib­ut­or to Scotland’s car­bon emis­sions. How­ever, giv­ing pri­or­ity to vehicle move­ment and access res­ults in, for example, nar­row Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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foot­paths, inad­equate street light­ing and frag­men­ted cycle lanes a neg­at­ive feed­back loop that encour­ages great­er car use. In a rur­al con­text, the need to drive for the fore­see­able future can­not be over­looked, how­ever on arrival to the nearest set­tle­ment, encour­aging ​‘park and walk’ cul­ture through inter­ven­tions could have many benefits.

Loc­al ser­vices A fun­da­ment­al ten­et is the pro­vi­sion of loc­ally access­ible ser­vices. This is a focus on ser­vices that meet a daily need, recog­nising that daily needs vary for chil­dren, young people and older and dis­abled per­sons. Plan­ning can apply a ret­ro­fit lens, sup­port­ing the pro­vi­sion of new ser­vices in areas which are defi­cient and encour­aging res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment in areas that are well served. Assess­ing the suf­fi­ciency of play oppor­tun­it­ies for chil­dren (a leg­al require­ment in pre­par­ing an evid­ence report) provides an oppor­tun­ity to tie in the 20 minute neigh­bour­hood concept.

Open space strategies Con­sid­er­a­tion of pro­tect­ing and pro­mot­ing high qual­ity open and blue / green infrastructure5 can be framed and aligned with 20 minute neigh­bour­hood require­ments. Forestry and wood­land strategies could also be aligned to sup­port the con­sid­er­a­tion of 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods by identi­fy­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for com­munity woodland.

The paper provides advice on devel­op­ment man­age­ment, high­light­ing that Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 gives plan­ners the con­fid­ence to refuse applic­a­tions which do not align with 20 minute neigh­bour­hood design prin­ciples. The import­ance of plan­ning oblig­a­tions is high­lighted and the role of loc­al devel­op­ment plans in set­ting out infra­struc­ture require­ments to cre­ate or rein­force suc­cess­ful 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods. For instance, in rela­tion to play and recre­ation­al facil­it­ies; low traffic neigh­bour­hoods; urb­an realm improve­ments; green infra­struc­ture pro­vi­sion; daily ser­vices pro­vi­sion; and act­ive travel networks.

The require­ment for place-based col­lab­or­at­ive work across a wide range of stake­hold­ers is recog­nised for 20 minute neigh­bour­hood con­cepts to be suc­cess­ful. This aligns with the vis­ion of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 and with the Place Prin­ciple approach to com­munity engage­ment. The Place Stand­ard tool provides a simple frame­work to struc­ture con­ser­va­tions about place.

5 Top­ic papers that cov­er open space and blue and green infra­struc­ture will be engaged on later in 2025. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Liv­ing Well Loc­ally: 20 minute com­munit­ies in the High­lands and Islands (2022)

This report, com­mis­sioned by the High­lands and Islands Trans­port Part­ner­ship and Sus­trans con­siders the nation­al policy com­mit­ment to 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods for the High­land and Islands. It asks what 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods could look like in a rur­al con­text; and what would need to hap­pen to a rur­al settlement

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