Report in on Sutherland Local Plan

The Sutherland Local Plan Examination has been concluded and the Council has now received the Report of Examination from the Scottish Government’s Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals (DPEA). The Examination was to deal with outstanding issues of objection raised in representations to the Deposit Draft (November 2008) version of the Local Plan and was carried out by Reporters independent of the Council.

The Examination Report has been published and is available on the Council’s website . A lot of the recommendations in the Report, including recommendations for changes to the Plan, are wholly or largely in line with the Council’s position at Examination. As part of the Council’s case it commended to the Reporter a number of changes to the Plan in response to objections. However, there are some issues on which the Reporter’s recommendations differ significantly from the Council’s position at Examination. Further information on this and the Council’s comment on it will be given next week.

The Reporter's recommendations are generally binding on the Council, with only very limited circumstances set out in regulations in which the Council may decline to follow the recommendations. 

The next step for the Local Plan will be a report on the Report of Examination to the Council’s Planning, Environment & Development Committee on 17th March 2010. The statutory process through to adoption does not include any further opportunities for representations to be made on the Plan.

Paper copies of the Examination Report are being made available for reference at Council HQ, the Area Planning & Building Standards Office at Drummuie, Golspie and Public Libraries in Sutherland. It is on both the Council’s website and that of DPEA. Also, DPEA has this week written to the representors whose objections were considered at Examination, to make them aware of the availability of the report.