Black Isle Local Place Plan

February 2023

Becky Richmond, Project Manager for the Black Isle Local Place Plan, has written about the programme of village consultation meetings through which Black Isle people will help to formulate the plan.

The Black Isle Local Place Plan - Your opportunity to help create a Black Isle that we are proud to call home.  A Black Isle fit for future generations.

The aim of the plan is to provide a Black Isle wide vision for the future.  It will build on existing consultations and surveys and over the next few weeks we will be consulting with communities across the Black Isle to find out what your priorities for the Black Isle might be.  There will be eight drop-in events held in Community Council areas across the Black Isle, where we’ll be seeking your views.

What do you want the Black Isle and your communities to be like in the future? What are the changes you would like to see?  What kind of voice do we want to have . .

Read the full article

Community Engagement Events

Cromarty - Monday 13th March, 3.30 - 7.30pm, West Church Hall
Resolis - Wednesday 15th March, 3.30 - 7.00pm, Resolis Hall
Ferintosh - Thursday 16th March, 3.00 - 8.00pm, Findon Hall, Culbokie
Knockbain - Wednesday 22nd March, 4.30 - 6.30pm, Munlochy Hall.
Knockbain - North Kessock - TBC (keep an eye out for flyers and posters)
Avoch and Killen - Tuesday 28th March, 3.00 - 7.00pm, Church of Scotland Church Hall
Killearnan - Wednesday 29th March, 3.30 - 7.30pm, Killearnan Church Hall
Fortrose & Rosemarkie - Thursday 30th March, 3.30 - 6.30pm, Gordon Memorial Hall, Rosemarkie

View and download events poster

If you can’t make the event in your local area, you will be warmly welcomed at any of the events across the Black Isle.  For further information please contact either myself: becky@blackislestud.co.uk or Nick Wright at: nick@nickwrightplanning.co.uk

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January 2023

A note by Becky Richmond, Place Plan Project Manager for Black Isle Partnership

As most of you are aware, the Black Isle Partnership was awarded funding from the Place Based Investment fund to facilitate the production of a Black Isle wide Local Place Plan.  The aim of the Plan is to build on the community cohesion that evolved throughout the pandemic and provide a Black Isle wide vision for the future. 

It will build on existing surveys and will consult communities on their priorities for the next ten years.  There will be a specific focus on the issues around strengthening community resilience through addressing economic impacts on the community, an issue that has become more pressing with the current rise in the cost of living.  Health and wellbeing and the climate crisis are the two other key focuses for this Plan.

Read the full note

TBI Convenor Julian Paren has also written an article for our newsletter on the importance of the Local Place Plan to be formulated during the coming months for the long term future development of the Black Isle.

Read Julian's article

A response by Jon Palmer, a former director of Black Isle Partnership, to Highland Council's 'Have your Say' consultation in August-September 2022.  Jon is critical of the unstructured nature of this consultation and sees the proposed Black Isle Local Place Plan as a much more robust means of ascertaining the recovery and development needs and future spending priorities of Black Isle communities.

Read Jon's response

Scottish Government policy circular  1/2022  Local Place Plans
https://www.gov.scot/publications/circular-1-2022-local-place-plans/

'Our Place' policy outline and guide
https://www.ourplace.scot/home/local-place-plans

This document reveals that Nick Wright, who has been contracted by Black Isle Partnership to prepare a local Place plan for the Black Isle, is a leading authority on the concept and practice of Place Plans via his company Nick Wright Planning .  The ourplace.scot website contains a link to a downloadable PDF guide to creating a local place plan, prepared by Nick Wright and the Scottish Community Development Centre.

Nick Wright's website contains a link to a blog by Nick and Ines Triebel on '20 Minute Neighbourhoods in the Highlands and Islands'.  The work outlined in the blog led to a detailed report exploring the possiblity of this at first sight unlikely concept.