Council seeks views on new sites and issues suggested for CaSPlan

12th March 2015

The Caithness and Sutherland Local Development Plan Main Issues Report (CaSPlan MIR) was published in October 2014 as a discussion document that set out initial ideas for what the plan needs to achieve for people and places in the area and the Council's initial preferences for where new development might be located. The consultation for the CaSPlan MIR finished on 6 February 2015. Through the consultation a small number of new sites and issues were suggested to The Council. As these were not subject of consultation in the MIR, The Council is now holding an additional 6 week period of consultation. This will run from 13 March to 24 April 2015.

David Cowie from the Development Plans Team explains: "Through the MIR consultation some people took the opportunity to suggest alternative sites for development. Not all of these suggested new sites or changes to boundaries of sites are suitable for identification in the development plan; however reasonable options that have been submitted to us will be subject to this consultation. It is important that everyone has the opportunity to express their opinions on these new sites and issues. This will then help inform the Council's subsequent decisions about whether or not to include any of these within the Proposed Plan."

Neighbours living within 30 metres of these new sites will be notified about the consultation.

Details of the sites being consulted on are available on the CaSPlan webpage www.highland.gov.uk/casplan where comments can also be submitted. Comments received will be considered alongside others submitted during the Main Issues Report. This will then help the Council decide which sites to include in the next stage of the Plan, known as the Proposed Plan, which represents the Council's settled view as to what the final adopted content of the plan should be. The Proposed Plan will be subject to a period of public consultation.

The Council is only consulting on these new sites and issues as the consultation on the MIR has finished. Any comments received on anything other than these new sites and issues will not be considered. Any comments on the new sites need to be received by The Council no later than 12 noon on 24 April 2015.