Attitudes and policies towards residential development in the Scottish countryside

This paper reports the results of a two-year study of attitudes towards residential development in the Scottish countryside, and how these impinge upon processes of policy formulation for land release. The research focused on two casestudy districts while also exploring processes of policy formulation at national and local levels.At a national (Scottish) level, the most potent influence on policy was found to be the professional ideologies of the civil service elite, with professional planners' opposition to housebuilding in the countryside increasingly challenged by the emergence of a housing professional community. At the local level, policies were the outcome of a struggle between individual councillors acting ‘parochially’ on behalf of their constituents (notably high-status, home-owners, landowners and farmers) and planning officials acting in accordance with dominant professional planning ideologies to oppose rural residential development.