July 6 2006

A world-leading planning expert currently rebuilding Louisiana and Mississippi following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is to help plan a new Highland community. Moray Estates has appointed Andres Duany to help draw up the blueprint for a proposed new settlement between Inverness and Nairn. Over the past 25 years Duany, principal of Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company (DPZ), has completed over 300 designs for communities throughout the world. Duany is a joint founder of a movement – called Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) – that promotes a more traditional and long-term approach to town planning, as opposed to suburban sprawl. The movement\'s influence is also seen in the work of the Prince’s Foundation, an educational charity that teaches an approach to building that puts people\'s needs, hopes and feelings at the heart of designing towns and cities. The new settlement proposed on a site south of the A96 near Tornagrain would include 5,000 homes, together with schools, shops and other services.
Andrew Howard, managing director of Moray Estates, said: \"We feel the estate and local communities will be able to play their part with such a constructive and innovative design process. We feel it\'s an approach that fits closely with the ethos of the Scottish Executive\'s new planning bill.
The Prince of Wales took the opportunity to announce that the Princes’ Foundation would be establishing an office in Scotland, when he spoke at the World Heritage Site Trust conference in June. Ed Taylor, an architect working for Robert Adam, previously employed by Page and Park, will be running the foundation in Scotland.

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