"Your task, should you choose to..."

An APT postal mailing recently posed these questions to the Chairpersons and Secretaries of all the Community Councils across Highland:

"Will this Highland-wide plan provide you with the means to keep your schools open; provide you with the water, sewage and road infrastructure to see jobs created and much needed genuinely affordable housing provided? How will development in what the Council defines as ‘key areas’ affect development in your area?

NHS Boards and their Local Authority partners face a huge challenge as the population of Scotland ages markedly. How will this strategic Highland-wide plan relate to the regular expense of providing for health and social care services and fit with coordinated commissioning of patient services?

What land use will make your communities prosper whilst safeguarding your landscape and heritage for future generations?"

We then forwarded the Community Councillor's letter electronically to all the Elected Members in The Highland Council along with a note for them which stated in part:

"The Main Issues Report, MIR, should be a genuine opportunity for communities across Highland to look realistically and objectively at what the future may bring and to provide strong and positive comment with respect to the serious challenges that face us all. Indeed Planning Aid Scotland informed us that the Government is hoping that (in general terms) an MIR will provide an opportunity for members of the public to put forward their thoughts about any planning matter, from land allocation to the wording of planning policies.

Our treasurer has introduced the committee to the concept of deliberative public engagement as a means of helping to create better public services; promoting social cohesion and fostering a thriving community. The APT committee is concerned that given that there is a degree of expressed dissatisfaction with the planning process there is a very real possibility that the public will be deterred from participating in this important stage of the statutory development plan process on the basis of past negative experiences during non-statutory participation.


In the light of this we seek reassurance that Elected Members will be engaging with their communities to promote and ensure full and active community participation in the preparation of new plans for Highland.

Further, we seek reassurance that if the public once more makes an effort to respond to a consultation there will be sufficient time available, not only for the officers of Highland Council to consider the views put forward on the MIR, but for Elected Members to consider how the responses to the MIR across Highland have influenced the content of the Proposed Highland-wide LDP."

It is the Elected Members of Highland Council who will make the decision as to whether the content of the 'Proposed Highland-wide Local Development Plan' - which will be prepared based on the views expressed during the consultation on the Main Issues Report - truly reflects measured consideration of the views that were put forward.

During the forthcoming 10 weeks consultation on the HwLDP it is up to US to make sure that we tell our planning authority just how we feel about the consultation and just how much we care about making the places we live in the Highlands the best that they can be.