Local Development and Land Use Plan – Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Local Development and Land Use Plan?
The Local Development and Land Use Plan is a new integrated plan that will set out not just where development should and shouldn’t happen, but also how land across the National Park could be used, managed and protected.
As the planning authority, we have a legal duty to prepare a development plan for the National Park guiding what happens where, including housing, business and tourism, while working to build and strengthen vital nature connections.
How land is used is also central to the environment, communities and economy of the National Park so it makes sense to bring these together in one integrated plan.
Read more about the Local Development and Land Use Plan.
Why is Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park combining their local development plan and land use framework into the one new plan?
We’re bringing land use into the Local Development Plan, because in a primarily rural place like the National Park, the way land is used plays a crucial role in supporting our environment, communities and economy.
National Planning Framework 4 has also placed nature recovery and climate action at the heart of how land is developed. The new Plan delivers on this shift but goes a step further by bringing development planning and land use together in one joined-up plan for the first time.
By piloting this new approach, the National Park Authority to guide decisions and investment while also unlocking new opportunities for sustainable development and land use for years to come.
What is a local development plan?
Every planning authority in Scotland (local councils and the National Park Authorities) must have a Local Development Plan.
Together with the National Planning Framework for Scotland (NPF4), the LDP forms the development plan for the area and will be used to make planning decisions and deliver the requirements of NPF4 for the National Park.
A Local Development Plan (LDP) guides how places will change in the future, including where development should and should not happen. It manages the development and use of land in the long-term public interest.
What is National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4)?
A long-term plan for Scotland that sets out where development and infrastructure is needed. National Planning Framework (NPF4) guides spatial development, sets out national planning policies, designates national developments and highlights regional spatial priorities. NPF4 alongside the Local Development Plan, is part of the Development Plan and a key factor in planning decision making in Scotland.
What is the Call for Land, Sites and Ideas?
The ‘Call for Sites, Land, and Ideas’ is an informal non-statuary engagement opportunity for public input in the process. This call presented an open opportunity for landowners, developers, farmers, land and estate managers, businesses, community groups, and individuals to suggest ideas for future development, land use and restoration opportunities.
The call, alongside additional formal and informal engagement stages will work to ensure the process to prepare the plan is transparent, clearly communicated, understood and that local communities’ priorities are genuinely understood.
Information gathered through this process will help inform the preparation of the Proposed Plan, which will then be published for public consultation in 2027, allowing communities, stakeholders and individuals to comment formally before the plan is finalised.
Are all CLSI submissions going to be taken forward and developed?
No. All submissions received from this call are suggestions only at this stage, their submission and publication on the National Park Authority website is for awareness and transparency only and is not indicative of approval.
A Site Assessment process will be undertaken to help identify the proposals that are most suitable for the new Local Development and Land Use Plan.
Is there still time to engage/submit my site/idea?
Although the Call for Land, Sites and Ideas has now closed, opportunities for engagement remain as part of the informal and formal engagement stages.
Informal, non-statutory engagement workshops are being held with local communities to discuss the Plan and suggestions received through the Call for Land, Sites and Ideas.
The main opportunity for people to engage with and comment on the Proposed Plan will be the formal public consultation in summer 2027.
Why have we divided the National Park into six sub-areas for this new spatial plan?
Six place-based sub-areas were created to reflect distinct geographic areas, settlements and functional relationships. This supports a more place-based approach to planning and engagement. The sub-areas are still to be confirmed and whilst there are not many substantive changes envisaged to these, we would like to confirm boundaries around certain locations.
What are Local Place Plans?
Local Place Plans (LPPs) are community-led plans introduced by the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019. They set out communities’ proposals and priorities for the development and use of land and must be taken into account when preparing the Local Development and Land Use Plan. Most communities in the National Park have prepared a Local Place Plan and there a several nearing completion.
All LPPs in the National Park will help inform the new LDLUP process.
What is Integrated Land Management?
Integrated Land Management is about taking a joined up, place-based approach to how land is used and managed and recognises that different land uses are all interconnected. Integrated land management can help to support land use that delivers for climate, nature and community benefits for now and into the future.
What is a regional land use framework?
A Regional Land Use Framework (RLUF) is a way of bringing together evidence, maps and the knowledge of people who live, work and manage land in an area to help guide future land use change, investment and land management. Rather than looking at individual land uses such as farming, forestry, nature restoration, housing, renewable energy or recreation separately, it considers how land can deliver a range of benefits and where there may be opportunities, choices or tensions between different uses.
The National Park is one of five Scottish Government Regional Land Use Partnership (RLUP) pilot areas. The pilots were established to test how a more collaborative, regional approach to land use could work in practice. This followed advice from the Scottish Land Commission on the role that Regional Land Use Partnerships and Regional Land Use Frameworks could play in connecting national priorities with the needs and opportunities of individual places.
Put simply, the Partnership is about the people and the conversation, while the Framework is about turning that conversation and the evidence into a spatial plan of opportunities and priorities for land use. The Partnership approach brings together land managers, communities, public bodies and other interests to consider what we need from our land, where different objectives can work together, and where choices or trade offs may need to be considered.
The Framework is not intended to prescribe what must happen on individual pieces of land. Instead, it provides a shared evidence base and a strategic, spatial picture that can help people understand where land use change could deliver multiple benefits and support better coordinated decisions about future action, investment and funding.
What is a Nature Network? Why are these important?
National Planning Framework (NPF) 4 defines Nature Networks as:
“A joined-up system of places important for wild plants and animals, on land and in water. It allows plants, animals, seeds, nutrients and water to move from place to place and enables the natural world to adapt to change, providing plants and animals with places to live, feed and breed. Effectively functioning nature networks will connect existing nature rich areas through habitat corridors, habitat ‘stepping stones’, or habitat restoration areas”.
The planning system has a key role to play in facilitating the creation of nature networks, helping to build and strengthen networks and the connections between them.