Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Scotland 2
Scotland 2
support for local projects although views on this knowledge to the map, identify problems, local ideas about how to address this situation.
among the agents were mixed. opportunities and ideas. The process was designed At the same time, The Highland Council decided to Rural Development Lessons from the North
to be owned and run by local people. The map adapt the method for use in developing statutory
Planning for Real - Local Plans in goes out to people wherever they are - at school, Local Plans. This was an interesting experiment in SCOTLAND • How can people come together to promote local development?
the Highlands work or play - gathering ideas. The ideas are then using a bottom-up process for a top-down purpose.
‘Planning for Real’ (PFR) was developed as a tool sorted and prioritised locally and form the basis for Their method used tools of local maps and topic
for aiding community planning by Neighbourhood negotiation with public bodies and making a plan cards, in public meetings, to gather local ideas. The
Initiatives Foundation (Ref 13) in 1977. It is a of action. weakness for the community is that they are not
colourful and friendly method for bringing together involved in the analysis of the information. Whilst
first hand local knowledge with expert advice to The first local PFR in the Highlands was carried out this approach is not owned by the community, it
identify issues, ideas and priorities for action. The in 1994, by 2 communities - Kyle and Kyleakin, has enabled a significantly greater local
method is based on maps and models of real ferry ports faced with the construction of the bridge contribution to statutory planning than previously.
Vanessa Halhead, The Arkleton Centre for Rural Development Research, University of Aberdeen, St. Mary’s ,
places - street, village, area. Through a system of to the Isle of Skye, which was likely to by-pass The method has been used in all Local Plans
topic cards, local people can add their own them (Ref.14). PFR helped to gather all of the throughout the Highlands for over 10 years. King’s College, Aberdeen AB24 3UF
Lessons learned
Experience has shown that success in participatory critical. Communities are action focused and will blanket approaches do not work.
rural appraisal rests on the following principles: