Following an announcement on 19 May by the Deputy First Minister, the proposed new settlement of Tornagrain has been recognised as an exemplar by the Scottish Government.

SSCI Exemplars

Eleven projects throughout Scotland have been awarded recognition that they are working towards ‘Creating a Scottish Sustainable Community’.

The Scottish Government believe that these eleven projects have the potential to raise the profile of Scotland as a country where attitudes, skills and ambition come together to deliver developments which will stand the test of time, have lasting positive benefits for people and the environment. The Scottish Government recognition of these projects through the SSCI relates to an interest in supporting the vision of Moray Estates Development Company to create exemplar sustainable communities.

The outline planning application for a proposed new town at Tornagrain was submitted to The Highland Council on Thursday 15 January.

A copy of the planning application, Environmental Statement and associated documents may be inspected during normal office hours at The Inverness Area Planning and Building Standards Office, The Highland Council, 1-3 Church Street, Inverness, IV1 1DY.

A new page entitled 'Planning' has been uploaded to this website to enable the set of planning documents to be viewed online. 

In September 2007, The Highland Council approved the final parts of the A96 Corridor Strategy, the Strategic Environmental Assessment and the Developer’s Contribution Protocol.

Following this decision, the Estate informed local communities that it was preparing a planning application for Tornagrain, which was due for submission in the autumn of 2008. The application will  be accompanied by an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

As the first stage of the preparation of the EIA experts in a number of fields such as ecology, landscape, archaeology and transport have carried out assessments of the current condition of the site against which assessments of the impact of the proposal will be made.

Moray Estates wished members of local communities to be able to see the outputs from this stage of work and held a public exhibition to provide information on the analysis undertaken to date.

The first exhibition was held on Wednesday 7th November (12-9) and Thursday 8th November (10-9) in Petty Church Hall, off the A96 by Tornagrain. The EIA experts attended the exhibition and were on hand to answer questions and discuss issues that arose relating to this stage of the project.

The exhibition boards from the first exhibtion have been reproduced as a pamphlet, which is downloadable HERE. (1MB .pdf)

The second exhibition which displayed the revised masterplan and the concept of the proposed design code took place on Monday 10th March (12-9) and Tuesday 11th March (10-9) at Petty Church Hall.  Again, the EIA experts were available to answer questions that arose from the literature displayed.

A brochure of the boards from this exhibition can be downloaded HERE.

The final public exhibition prior to submission of the planning application will be held on Monday 15th September (12-9) and Tuesday 16th September (10-9), again in Petty Church Hall.  The exhibition will present the final masterplan, details of the Environmental Impact Assessment and the Design Code.  Please feel free to come along and see how the planning preparations have progressed.

The final exhibition brochure can be downloaded here.

An outline comment form is also available HERE. (50KB .pdf)