Aberdeenshire Council has started work on the Local Development Plan (LDP) that is anticipated to be approved in 2028 for the period between 2028 and 2038.

LDP’s are important to everyone as they “inform and advise developers and communities on the principles that built development should follow and where it should be located” (quote from Aberdeenshire Council).

The first stage of this new LDP is focussing on the production of an evidence report. This report consists of a collection of topic papers on planning themes that are set out by the Scottish Government. These topic papers will support creation of the Proposed Local Development Plan which Aberdeenshire Council will publish in 2025.

Consultation on these topic papers has now begun, please find below the email received from the council explaining the process in more detail along with links to the papers.

Dear Community Council,

As part of the production of the Aberdeenshire Local Development Plan, we are required to compile and publish an Evidence Report of the key information that we should be considering to inform that Plan.
National Planning Framework 4 and the Local Development Plan Guidance provides us with a general framework for the issues that the Local Development Plan should contain and the types of information that it should consider.

We are also required to ensure that we engage with people on the compilation of the Evidence Report.

In response to these instructions, Aberdeenshire Council is producing themed “topic papers” on each of the subjects we are required to consider. We are publishing these to make sure that we have identified and examined the right information, and that our conclusions on what that information might mean for the content of the Local Development Plan is appropriate.
This is your chance to get involved in this process and tell us what information we should be considering. It is also an opportunity for you to consider what the implications for the overall strategy of the Local Development Plan might be, whether you agree with our conclusions on this, and the criteria we should be using to influence that decision.

Overall, we anticipate that we will be publishing approximately 30 topic papers during this process.

A formal part of what we have to do is that we must submit our Evidence Report to the Directorate of Planning and Environmental Appeals for assessment. This assessment will look at those matters where people such as yourselves “dispute” the evidence that we have collected and will examine whether there are additional data sets that should be included in the process. We would like to think that we are comprehensive in our collection and assessment of evidence, only considering information that is appropriate to the Local Development Plan and that is sufficient in its scope to add value to the process. However, a consultation is now open through our EngageAberdeenshireLDPHub on the topics below where we would welcome your views on this matter.

The consultation period for each topic paper is for six weeks. After that, we will review the comments made and consider any actions that we may need to take to improve our data and its interpretation. In those cases where we cannot agree with views presented, we will record disputes for transfer to the Evidence Report Gate Check assessment. We will publish a report of the views submitted and our response after the close of each survey, again on the EngageAberdeenshireLDPHub.

On the Engage Aberdeenshire LDP hub we present a brief summary of the issues that are raised by our analysis, as well as access to the full topic paper. Here you will be able to read these to see if the matters considered are relevant to your interests. The scope of all the topic papers that we will be producing has been published in our Development Plan Scheme.

We have just published surveys on the following topic papers:
• Biodiversity and the Nature Crisis
• Natural Places
• Forests and woodlands
And are looking for responses from you, your organisation, or those you represent, by 15 March 2024.

We think that the Local Development Plan is an important strategic document that will influence where we all live, work and play, and helps us to come to a view about where the right place is for new development, and what we should be trying to achieve within our communities over the period 2029 to 2039. I hope that you too can recognise that value and choose to participate in its content.

Email from Aberdeenshire Council Jan 2024