We do things differently. For starters, we ask residents what they want. And we listen. Then, with the community engagement and our team of urban designers, we create true neighbourhoods, with built-in sustainability. The results are truly evolutionary.

Urban Design creates classic, desirable neighbourhoods, in fact in the same way that our forefathers used to build towns and villages across Scotland.

To do this we use community knowledge and time-tested planning principles. The Scottish Government is committed to making Scotland a far more sustainable place, so issues such as traffic use are also at the top of the agenda.

Community knowledge

From initial scoping sessions to discuss ideas, through to design and modelling workshops, the local community leads the way at every stage.

The result? We gain a true understanding before we start planning for the future. And our planning application is full of suggestions gathered by listening to you.

Some of our guiding principles:

• ‘Walkable’ communities – ideally within a ten-minute walk of the main amenities. Pedestrians need to be given a priority
• Connected spaces – streets, lanes and intelligent planning to help you get around town. We want to banish the cul-de-sac
• Public places – areas that form focal points in the town, allowing people to mix and relax
• Mixing it up – housing needs to go hand-in-hand with commercial properties. We also like to mix private residences with affordable rented or shared-ownership housing
• Visual variety – we don’t build rows and rows of anonymous houses. Instead, we prefer to mix housing types and design features
• Local first – the designs, materials and layouts need to reflect the best of the existing area. Our buildings should blend seamlessly into the town - and never feel like a separate annexe.

Although tailored to suit the needs of each specific area, an example of a typical community engagement would include the following step by step process.