Public consultations on Argyll Estates’ galvanic plan for Inveraray development

There’s planning and there’s planning. Most planning is small scale dickering around,  Not this one. This is a sweeping imaginative vision of a designed integration of Inveraray old and new.

It is so unafraid of scale it could be said to be buccaneering in the best and most adventurous uses of the word.

You can find out all about it in the Nicoll Hall in Inveraray, in any one or all of three drop-in consultation sessions:

• Friday 18th June from 2.00pm-4.00pm
• Saturday 19th June from 10.00am-12.00 noon
• Saturday 19th June from 2.00pm-4.00pm.

Given that Inveraray’s particular aesthetic charm comes from its status as one of the few designed towns in Scotland, created under the aegis of the 3rd Duke of Argyll in the mid 1700s, it has a certain appropriateness that the driver behind this major development plan is the Argyll Estates.

The Argyll Estates commissioned Urban Animation to lead the Master Planning of the proposed development. The company is experienced in community development through Master Planning and is involved in a project at Bowmore in Islay.

The thinking behind this initiative is that, while Inveraray is unusual in being a planned and designed town from its inception in its present form, post World war II development has been piecemeal, expanding the town significantly with suburbanisation that has undermined the architectural sculpture and the functional flow of its fringes and setting.

The Inveraray Project is designed to establish a long term framework for development in and around the town, ensuring that future growth of the town achieves suitably high quality.

Because of Inveraray’s position at the neck of the routes northwards towards Oban and Lorn and westwards and south to Mid Argyll and the Kintyre peninsula, the village is well placed to spread wider benefits arising from a successful development.

It might also lead by example in thoroughgoing planned development, future-proofing Argyll’s villages and towns.

A preliminary Master Plan has been published for discussion and consultation. A few insights into what it proposed are:

• uniting the historic and modern parts of the town to form a coherent whole
• providing a full mix of house types and sizes, including affordable options
• providing opportunities for employment, tourism, community and recreational uses, enabling the town to accommodate new services and facilities locally
• hosting a site for community allotments.

Richard Heggie, Urban Animation’s Director and the Royal Town Planning Institute’s current UK Planning Consultant of the Year, says: ‘Inveraray is a truly unique town but there’s a serious danger that short term thinking will continue to undermine the quality of the place. The Inveraray Project is a rare opportunity for bold urban planning to enrich a historic legacy and create something of equally lasting quality’.

Argyll & Bute Council will consider the proposals for inclusion in its forthcoming Main Issues Report – the first step in the replacement of its Local Plan.

You can see the Preliminary Master Plan at the Urban Animation website.

Comments or questions are welcome there – but the main thing is to seize the opportunity to see, discuss, get more information, ask questions in person and offer opinions at the consultation sessions listed above – starting tomorrow.

Bring friends and make it a communal exploration – swop ideas and reactions. Drop in more than once – this is a lot to get your head around and you can have as many bites at the consultation cherry as you like. This is your town – although, given its status, it’s also Argyll’s town so if you live in the area, you’ll be welcome at the sessions.

This is a breathtaking proposal and it cannot be other than exciting to see the Argyll Estates take the lead with Urban Animation in moving this historic Loch Fyneside town to a future fit for purpose, equally well planned and designed as its original foundation.