Wednesday, 19 June 2024

LAUNCH OF LOCAL LIVING IN HIGHLAND CONSULTATION

On Monday 17 June 2024, The Highland Council launched the ‘Local Living in Highland’ consultation to the public.

What is Local Living?

The ‘local living’ concept is promoted by the Scottish Government.  The concept aims to provide people with the opportunity to meet the majority of their daily needs within a reasonable distance of their home. 

What is the Local Living Tool?

To shape our approach in Highland the Development Plans Team has developed a tool which helps assess how well Highland places meet the principles of local living.  The tool plots the location of a variety of services for example shops, greenspace, leisure and learning and the accessibility to these services within a 10 minute walking distance. 

Using geographic information systems (GIS) mapping, Highland was split up into hundreds of small hexagonal 'cells' within which services within a 10 minute walk were counted.  The scores for each service were then calculated to give an overall 'weighted' score for each cell. The number in each cell indicates how well that part of a settlement scores in terms of local living.  Ahead of the consultation going live the graphic below provides an illustration of the local living tool.

What is the consultation about?

We recognise that communities and businesses have an important role to play in informing local living.  At this stage we are not seeking views on the results of the Local Living Tool - we are simply seeking views on its methodology and accuracy. We want to know what people think about it in terms of the services included, the level of importance given to each service, accuracy and what approaches we could take to rural areas. A graphic that is included in the consultation document that shows the services included and scoring given is shown below:

Responses will help us finalise our local living tool for publication.  The tool will then form an important part of the evidence base for our new Highland Local Development Plan (HLDP).  It will help us prepare a settlement hierarchy for Highland, consider which areas may be suitable for new development, and the kinds of services and infrastructure needed to support them.  It can also help inform the appropriateness of new development proposals and may be used by other Council services to inform future infrastructure investment decisions.

How can the consultation be accessed?

It can be accessed through www.highland.gov.uk/localliving and a QR code has also been created.

When does the consultation close?

The consultation closes on 16 August 2024.

Is this consultation related to the Place Standard Consultation?

Yes - this consultation is being run alongside our Highland Place Standard Survey consultation, which has been ongoing since 20 March 2024.  The Place Standard survey is gathering feedback on people’s lived experiences of Highland and what makes for a good place to live, work, play and visit. The Place Standard and Local Living consultations are complementary to each other – the outputs of both consultations will help to inform the evidence base for our new HLDP. The deadline for responses to both consultations is 16 August 2024 (as recently announced, the Place Standard survey has been extended to that date).

Where can questions about Local Living consultation be directed to?

Questions can be directed to the Council’s Development Plans Team on hldp@highland.gov.uk or by phone through the Service Centre on 01349 886608.

2026

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