Effective Community Engagement in Local Development Plans aims to support planning authorities and all users of the planning system, including communities, and is part of measures introduced by the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 to put community voices at the heart of the planning system in Scotland.

This new guidance is split into four parts which can be used together or separately, depending on the engagement activities taking place:

Part 1 - The big picture sets the context and benefits of engagement.

Part 2 - Levels of engagement helps us think about the purpose of engagement at each stage of making a local development plan. Each level offers different opportunities for engagement and influence.

Part 3 - Local Development Plan Preparation covers the purpose of a local development plan, how it is made and when different levels of engagement could be used (summarised in Table 1).

Part 4 - Stage by stage provides more detail about different levels of engagement in local development plan making. More than one level of engagement may be suitable for some stages of making a local development plan. This part also covers engagement in impact assessment.

You can read the whole document here.