Land Use Strategy (LUS) Delivery Evaluation Project: Volume 1: Main Report

Scotland’s first Land Use Strategy (LUS) – Getting the best from our land – was published in March 2011. The LUS is a requirement of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, highlighting the important contribution that Scottish Ministers expect land use and land management to make towards the climate change agenda in Scotland. The crucial component of the LUS are its ten principles for sustainable land use – the LUS Principles. The LUS Principles are the key mechanism by which the strategic intent of the national level LUS can be translated into regional and local level planning and decision-making, through existing land use delivery mechanisms, to inform action on the ground. The overall aim of the LUS Delivery Evaluation Project therefore was “to evaluate the range of current land use delivery mechanisms, to ascertain their effectiveness in translating the strategic Principles of the LUS into decision-making on the ground”. The evaluation considered eleven case study land use delivery mechanisms ranging from an urban Local Development Plan (LDP) to the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Partnership Plan.