A1: Introducing the Guide

The Guide has been created to provide advice and information that can assist in the evolution and appraisal of proposals for large scale development through the planning process. There is no formal definition of such ‘large scale’ projects and as such stakeholders will need to give consideration to a number of issues to assess whether a specific project is suitable for consideration against this Guide.

Given the focus on the creation of sustainable communities, this advice has been prepared with the intention of being most relevant to large scale residential / mixed use proposals, although much of the information will also be applicable to other more commercial or infrastructure projects.

The information has been based upon the research of good practice and experience that ATLAS has gained from its project work on major projects. It addresses two key aspects:

• An overall step-by-step process to take forward large development projects based upon a series of key stages; and
• More focussed advicein relation to a number of key topic areas that may need to be addressed to enable projects to come to a successful outcome.

Every project will be unique in terms of the physical, social and economic context, the characteristics and needs of the existing and future communities, variety of public and private sector interests, political willingness and the attitudes, skills and organisational culture of the various parties involved. Stakeholders using the information contained on this website will therefore need to focus activity towards those areas of the process that relate to the status of their project, or the issues that they may be facing.

There will also be different expectations from the process, with some projects progressing to planning application submission, determination or implementation stages. In other instances stakeholders may be at the very first stage in working out what to do with a site. This Guide is flexible enough to be applicable across a variety of different projects, at different stages and with different anticipated outcomes.

The information is not intended to be prescriptive or final, and will be updated as further ‘good practice’ becomes available. It is also responsive to learning from practical experience and as such users are encouraged to submit their views on what works best and when.