Caol Local Place Plan
In July 2024, we were engaged by Caol Community Council to prepare a stage 1 draft plan for the community.
Local Place Plans were introduced by the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, which contains a new right for communities to produce their own plans as part of the new Scottish planning system. Local Place Plans contain the community’s proposals for the development and use of land and provide a new opportunity for communities to feed into the planning system with ideas and proposals.
Local Place Plans offer communities the opportunity to develop proposals for their local area, expressing their aspirations and ambitions for future change.
As a fully collaborative and aspirational plan for the future our aim was to capture and address the needs and wants of the community in order to ensure that it thrives for years to come.
Through our consultation stage we wanted to ensure that the plan reflects the desires of the WHOLE community engaging with all demographics.
Alongside this we also strived to capture what collectively as a community we believe we are doing well at present and what we seek to do more of!
John Gillespie, Chair of Caol Community Council comments, “Caol Community Council wish to thank Mairi, and Northern Light, for all their work helping us with our Draft Local Place Plan. They've have been very happy to discuss things with us throughout our consultation, and we wouldn't have been able to do this without their help and support.”
Going forward, the roadmap developed explores the challenges and proposals to combat these. It also details the proposals in terms of cost, timescale and responsibility. The next stage of this project will see a secondary round of consultancy – asking the community if the information captured is a true reflection of their view.
Once completed and registered this plan could become a critical tool in securing funding for community groups and development projects throughout the region.
Local Place Plans had to be registered with Highland Council by the 24th September 2024 deadline but they have noted Local Place Plans registered outwith the set timeframe will be taken into account at the next opportunity presented by the programme for Local Development Plan preparation.
As a small local business with many of our staff resident in Caol we were very happy to support the community council and take part in the process.
Find out more via the below;
https://www.highland.gov.uk/info/178/development_plans/1043/local_place_plans
