North Ayrshire’s third Local Development PlanGet project news
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LDP Evidence Reports and the Private Sector
The Strategic Planning team at North Ayrshire Council are continuing with the preparation of a new local development plan for the area. The first stage in this process is an Evidence Report. As set out in our last update in November and the Development Plan Scheme, we are aiming to submit the Evidence Report to the Scottish Government at the beginning of 2025.
The Planning and Architecture division of the Scottish Government have recently published a useful blog post on what private sector stakeholders can do to support the Evidence Report stage of plan-making.
It covers the purpose of Evidence Reports; the involvement private sector stakeholders such as landowners and developers can expect; the role of the Gate Check in assessing the sufficiency of the evidence and dealing with disagreements and site promotion in the new development planning system.
The full blog can be read on the Scottish Government website.
Early and proactive engagement between the planning authority and all stakeholders is expected as part of the process of preparing the Evidence Report and there is a statutory requirement to engage with the 'public at large'.
Regardless of your interest in the planning system or North Ayrshire, if you have any queries regarding the Local Development Plan and how you can become involved, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the Strategic Planning Team.
Update on Local Development Plan 3 Preparation
We have published an update on the preparation of North Ayrshire's third Local Development Plan, LDP3.
On Wednesday 23th November, the North Ayrshire's Planning Committee adopted the 2023 'Development Plan Scheme'. The Development Plan Scheme is updated every year and sets out our timetable for the preparation of LDP3; details of what is involved at each stage; and a Participation Statement outlining when consultation is likely to take place, how and with whom.
The new Development Plan Scheme can be viewed online at our website.
In March this year, we launched the 'Your Place' survey, based on the Place Standard. This survey will stay open until March 2024. If you haven't already, we would encourage you could complete the survey and share it with others so as many as people as possible can feed into the process and tell us about the places in North Ayrshire they live, work and visit.
During 2024 our focus will be on the preparation of the Evidence Report. To support the preparation of the Evidence Report, we will draft and publish Place Profiles for each locality in North Ayrshire. These will set out key baseline information and data, summarise early engagement to date and reflect on the outcomes of other recent and current community engagement initiatives. There will be an opportunity for you to review these.
If you have any queries regarding the Local Development Plan, or any other aspect of planning in North Ayrshire, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the Strategic Planning Team.
Communities Encouraged to Participate in Scottish Government Consultation
National Planning Framework 4 defines a community as 'A body of people'. This can be based on common factors:
The guidance is intended to be used by planning authorities as a sense check when planning their engagement to support the preparation of local development plans.
It will also be helpful to communities, organisations and individuals in understanding when they can engage in the local development plan process, and what influence on the plan making that engagement may have.
This drafted guidance is part of the ongoing planning reform within Scotland which aims to enhance engagement within the planning system.
Communities are encouraged to read the draft guidance and respond to the consultation which runs until the 13th September 2023.
Help shape how we involve you in the preparation of LDP3
This plan will be people-centred: putting people and communities at the heart of the plan, meeting people’s needs and aspirations, tackling inequalities and prepared collaboratively. To achieve this, it is important we understand the best way to engage with all individuals, groups and organisations with an interest in North Ayrshire and provide opportunities for a diverse range of people to express their views in different ways.
To inform our Participation Statement, we have prepared a short survey to help inform our approach to engagement. A ‘Participation Statement’ will be published later this year as part of the Development Plan Scheme. The Development Plan Scheme and Participation Statement is updated annually and lets everyone know when and how they can get involved in the plan and keep them informed of progress. You can view the current Development Plan Scheme on our website.
If you have not already, you are also encouraged to tell us about the area in which you live, work or visit in North Ayrshire by completing the Your Place Survey or Young People’s Your Place Survey (ages 13 to 17) – and to share the surveys with your friends, family and networks so we hear the views of as many people as possible.
What is a 20-minute Neighbourhood?
A key aim of the third Local Development Plan will be to support local living. Local living and 20-minute neighbourhoods can help to deliver the healthy, sustainable, and resilient places required to support a good quality of life and balance our environmental impact. The Local Living and 20-minute neighbourhood concepts aim to create places where people can meet the majority of their daily needs within a reasonable distance of their home, by walking, wheeling or cycling.
Local living provides people with the opportunity to meet the majority of their daily needs within a reasonable distance of their home.
The 20-minute neighbourhood concept is one method of supporting local living. The 20-minute neighbourhoods concept aims to provide access to the majority of daily needs within a 20-minute walk, wheel or cycle.
Research into 20-minute neighbourhoods in a Scottish context identified the opportunity for the concept to support:
Places with high quality housing, the right local infrastructure, good access to services, employment, education, and sustainable travel options can help to break cycles of disadvantage and poverty, promote healthy lifestyles and support physical and mental wellbeing. They can also help to build thriving local economies and support community wealth building, strengthening local resilience as well as playing an important role in supporting environmental sustainability.
Research shows that 20 minutes (roughly 10 minutes out and the same to return home) is generally the threshold time-period that people are willing to walk to access key destinations. The distance covered in a 20-minute round trip, by walking, will vary according to multiple conditions and factors. The quality of surrounding environment, the different circumstances, age and ability of individuals and their communities, the location, and the topography, are contributory factors in the distance people are willing or able to travel actively to access service.
In rural and island settings, where the geographical context is complex and varied, the aspiration and focus needs to be on enabling people to have access to the services, amenities and facilities needed for a full life. The 20 minutes should not be considered as the defining or limiting factor in for local living in any context but as a useful gauge of the aspiration around access and proximity to services within a neighbourhood to enable people to live well locally.
Local living and 20-minute neighbourhoods are not restrictive on people’s behaviour and are simply a way of supporting and encouraging communities to access more of their daily needs locally, enabling healthy and sustainable lifestyles.
A Local Living Framework diagram has been developed to provide a consistent structure to consider local living and the daily needs in a place. The framework sets out 14 key themes, derived from the Place Standard tool – the same tool we have used to create our survey on Your Place. The local living framework diagram was developed to support and encourage flexible, place-based approachs when considering the daily needs in a place that supports local living - whilst avoiding tick box approaches. Five overarching categories as the key considerations for local living have been created, the categories are:
To read more on Local Living and 20-minute neighbourhoods view the guidance published by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government is currently seeking views on it’s drafted guidance on local living and 20-minute neighbourhoods to support the implementation of National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4). To respond to the consultation please visit the Scottish Government webpage.
Draft Development Brief Consultation Launched: Former Kerelaw School and Kerelaw South Sites
The guidance, which we are calling a development brief details some of the important characteristics of the site which are likely to be considered should a planning application be submitted for the development of the site.
The Council is seeking your input to ensure that we have as much information as possible in order to have guidance which helps balances the views of everyone. Your responses will inform the final guidance that will be considered by the Council’s Planning Committee. Should the document be approved by Committee, the Development Brief will inform future development on the site. You can view the brief by visiting the Council’s Other Planning Guidance webpage.
If you want to comment on the brief, you can respond by using an online survey. Complete the survey.
We will be accepting comments on the brief for four weeks until Wednesday 17th of May.
If you have any other questions or comments, or you if you need help submitting your response, please get in touch via email to ldp@north-ayrshire.gov.uk.
How good is your place?
The Place Standard is an easy-to-use tool to evaluate a place. The tool allows you to consider the physical and social aspects that make a place, highlighting successful assets and areas for improvement. Local knowledge and a shared understanding of a place help to make good decisions and target resources. The tool allows you to assess and re-assess a place in a consistent way to see over time if improvements have been made as well as to identify any new areas for improvement.
The Place Standard tool is based around 14 questions allowing you to think about the physical elements of a place – such as the buildings, spaces and transport – as well as the social aspects – like how safe you feel, or if you feel you have a say in decision making. The tool allows you to assess your place against the fourteen questions using a 1 to 7 scoring system where 1 means there is a lot of room for improvement and 7 means there is very little room for improvement.
Key principles for the assessment are to think about your place now and in the future – what could change and what impact would that have on your place? Next think about your place in different contexts for example different times of day, different weather conditions or different seasons. Think about your place from your own perspective but also from the point of view of others.
Our Your Place Survey follows the principles of the Place Standard tool and encourages people that live work or visit North Ayrshire to complete the assessment by telling us what is good about Your Place. In addition, Young People ages 13 – 17 can get involved by telling us about their place with the Young People Survey.
If you haven't already, get involved by completing the surveys and telling us about your place!More information about the Place Standard and Place Standard for children and Young People can be found on the Our Place website.
Council start work on next Local Development Plan
THE strategy that defines and shapes where future development of land and property will take place across our communities is being updated.
North Ayrshire Council issued its second Local Development Plan (LDP) in 2019 to formalise and provide a framework to guide development and investment in our area.
Now the third offering – LDP3 - is being developed and the local authority is looking for as much input as possible from community groups, residents and local businesses.
A new online hub has been launched to support preparation of the plan. The website sets out the stages involved in preparing the LDP3 and the opportunities for communities to have their say on the future of their places.
People with an interest in the future of places in North Ayrshire are encouraged to sign up for updates on LDP3 via the website by entering their email address.In the first stage of preparing the plan, the Council is looking to find out what people think about the places they live, work, and visit in North Ayrshire.
A survey has been launched to gauge local people’s views. This will be complemented by a series of in-person events with details to be provided over the coming weeks.
This first phase will run until the end of June. Preparation of LDP3 will take three to four years. The aim is to adopt the plan in Summer 2026 when it will guide development and be the framework from will all planning applications are assessed for the following ten years.
Councillor Tony Gurney, Cabinet Member for Economy and Climate Change, said:
“Local development plans are extremely important and provide local authorities with a framework that ensures development decisions are consistent and for the good of the whole area. We recognise people’s priorities will change and we try and reflect this when we are producing new LDPs. This one will be no different and it’s vitally important that we get as much input from local people as possible.”