Conservation areas - Scotland

The defining of Conservation Areas is governed by the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997; an update from previous Acts relating to such areas. Conservation Areas are designated by local planning authorities and can play an important role in environmental enhancement, economic and community regeneration (e.g. Townscape Heritage Initiatives and Conservation Areas Regeneration Schemes).

Councils review conservation areas from time to time in order to assess the need for alteration of boundaries for areas for which special planning considerations apply, e.g. Article 4 directions. Many conservation areas now have character appraisals to explain what it is that should be preserved and what can be enhanced.The dataset was first created from the merging of shapefile and Cad data provided by some councils from 2003 (see attribute table for details). Some in-house data capture at 1:2500 from published maps was also undertaken. Since then the dataset is being refreshed by data supplied by local authorities.