Highland Council has registered their first Local Place Plan. Stratherrick and Foyers, south of Loch Ness, are the first out of the blocks. It means that the community now has a plan that sets out ...

This is a summary of my 10 minute provocation to stimulate debate at a national conference on delivery of NPF4 - Delivering NPF4: What will it take? - organised by the UK Collaborative Centre for H...

Urban designer Paul Morsley of Iglu Studio, development economist Steven Tolson and land-use planner Nick Wright summarise their work on the public sector’s role in delivering NPF4, commissioned by...

[Image]There's been a lot of talk about online engagement in planning since lockdown started in March, much of it focussing on the use of web platforms for public Pre-Application Consultation on pl...

The original version of this article, jointly authored with Kathie Pollard of the Scottish Land Commission, was published on the Land Commission website on 15 June 2020. This version has been sligh...

[Image]Community Land Scotland's Policy Director Calum MacLeod has just published an excellent brief overview of what Scottish land reform has achieved since the 2003 Land Reform Act (thanks to the...

One thing I love about Glasgow city centre is the buzz: people everywhere, events in the street, new places to visit. In my professional life as an urban planner, I’m really interested in how to ...

[Image] I've had the privilege of being involved in almost twenty charrettes in Scotland. And it really is a privilege, because on every occasion I gain a fascinating insight into local life and as...

Councillor training on planning is back on the agenda, more than ever before. The draft Planning Bill published this week proposes:  • compulsory planning training for Councillors • an examination ...

[Image]When I first heard of the Scottish Government’s proposed research into barriers to engagement in planning - linked to the ongoing review of the planning system - I expected the barriers woul...

[Image]How would you describe the job of a planner? Regulator?  Facilitator?  Broker? Manager?  Mediator?  Designer? Personally, I’m more of a broker.  At the moment I’m brokering between people ...

[Image] The Scottish Government’s planners are busy working on a new White Paper on planning reform, for publication by the end of the year. I think they should be congratulated for their innovat...

[Image]This article first appeared in RTPI Scotland's journal The Scottish Planner (June 2016 edition). Better integration of spatial planning and Community Planning has been a hot topic in natio...

  [Image]Thanks to Steven Tolson FRICS, chartered surveyor and past chairman of RICS Scotland, for this guest blogpost – an examination of land and housing in Scotland, outlining what needs to be ...

This blog post first appeared in The Scottish Planner (April 2016 edition). Why is RTPI Scotland spending so much effort on the Scottish Government's Review of the Scottish Planning System and try...

The Scottish Government’s Review of the Planning System is a great opportunity to make planning work better for the country. With only a few days left until the 1st December deadline for written ...

I'm just back from a trip to Copenhagen.  It's famous as a city of cyclists: 52% of Copenhagers cycle to work or education every day, there are over 350km of cycle tracks, and cycling is growing f...

Recently I was at an interesting meeting with Iain Scott of Can Do Towns and Scotpreneur, civil servants from the Scottish Government’s regeneration & planning divisions and RTPI Scotland. The s...

[Image] In April 2012, I wrote a blog post arguing that UK planning policy for the countryside has generally emphasised landscape and biodiversity conservation over and above economic and social ob...

I’ve only caught one episode of BBC2′s Robert Peston Goes Shopping, but I’m glad I did. It sharpened my unease about the much vaunted “death” of the High Street. There are two facts that tend to g...