Wester Hailes Local Place Plan, Edinburgh
- In 2019 the Scottish Parliament passed into legislation a new Planning (Scotland) Act which introduces a wide range of reforms to Scotland’s planning system. Included in these changes is the opportunity for communities in Scotland to develop ‘Local Place Plans’. Wester Hailes Community Trust appointed UrbanPioneers (landscape architects, lead designer) who worked together with Dress for the Weather (architects) to develop a Local Place Plan (LPP) for Wester Hailes, Edinburgh.
The Wester Hailes Local Place Plan was shaped through extensive community and stakeholder engagement outlining how the community would like to see any development or use of land (spatial proposals) in Wester Hailes in the future. In addition, non-spatial proposals have been identified to tackle particular issues that would not be addressed through the spatial proposals alone.
With the proposed concept of the 20-Minute Neighbourhood to be embedded within the Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4) the Wester Hailes Local Place Plan has used the 20-Minute Neighbourhood features as the basis for the site appraisal and the resulting proposals.
Based on the site appraisal and engagement the Local Place Plan has outlined a vision, core values and key projects which are to be undertaken and developed in Wester Hailes for the coming years. The key projects (36!) including Strategies/ Long-term Approach Overall and Neighbourhood Physical Improvements, Community Hubs, Community Facilities and Community Building. Outline proposals, relevant Community and External Stakeholders, Potential Lead, Timescale and Next Steps have been defined for each project.
Engagement
The focus of the engagement was to reach a wide range of residents as possible, especially those that would usually not attend any organised events or activities. We used a specific constructed cart with a wooden model and other engagement material and toured through the different neighbourhoods of Wester Hailes. In Addition we attended organised events by local organisations, delivered workshops for more focused development of the Local Place Plan vision, projects and improvements were held with the steering group, High School pupils and local residents and finally a month long exhibition with drop in sessions on the final proposals.
As part of the work UrbanPioneers set up a steering group, as a sub-group to the Wester Hailes Community Trust, to guide and input to the Local Place Plan (LPP) progress through local organisations, groups and residents invited to join this group.
- Category
- Community & Placemaking, Masterplans/ Local Place Plans, Public engagement
- Client
- Wester Hailes Community Trust
- Status
- Registered with CEC May '23
- Design Team
- Dress for the Weather; Hayley Adam