Finding Potential Development Areas: A Site Selection Analysis
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Date
13//2/28/1Item status
Restricted AccessAuthor
Connolly, Carmel
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Abstract
Rural development faces many challenges; low population density, lack of resources and
technology, support and infrastructure. However rural areas also have strengths and they should not be excluded as locations for potential development based on their weaknesses.
Therefore the aim of this research is to find Potential Development Areas (PDAs) for
Argyll & Bute.
Twenty sub-criteria are used in the process, each contributing to determining whether an
area is suitable for a development or not. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is used to process the data and Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) is used to calculate theweightings. EU, Scottish Government and Argyll & Bute policies and plans are used indetermining the importance and significance of each criterion in AHP.
Areas found are then compared to Potential Development Areas (PDAs) from the Argyll
& Bute Local Plan (2009). The comparison is between PDAs chosen based on proximity
to urban settlements only and PDAs chosen based on 20 sub-criteria.
The result is that the majority of the Local Plan PDAs do correspond to PDAs found in
this analysis, but now they can be promoted for development based on more positive
characteristics (high population density and good communications links) than just
proximity to urban settlements.