Planning and Licensing

The Improvement Service and Geoxphere have launched Community Map Scotland, an easy mapping tool that will enable Community Councils and other community interest groups to map what is important to them and use these insights to have more of a say in what happens in their local areas.

The tool, which is already used widely across the parish communities in England and Wales, has been adapted for Scotland and will be useful in enabling communities to easily create Local Place Plans, a legislative mechanism to have their views considered for councils’ Local Development Plans. It incorporates many useful and interesting datasets about the environment, pollution, planning, transport and community features, and will also enable anyone to look at how far they can travel from any point in their neighbourhood in 5, 10 or 15 minutes by different modes of transport.

Find out more here.

tellmescotland

Provides access to public information notices including planning. This may be relevant to community councils.

Scottish Government

For information on the planning system in Scotland, visit the Scottish Government website.  The DPEA have also recorded a webinar for Community Councils and other community groups on how they can engage with the planning appeals process.

Planning Aid Scotland

Provides a free and impartial advice service about planning, environmental and related matters which may be useful to community councils.

Planning Aid Scotland delivered a webinar on Local Place Plans for community councillors which you can watch below.