We are thrilled to be shortlisted in the Planning Consultancy Award category at the 2016 Royal Town Planning Institute’s (RTPI) Awards for Research Excellence for our Scottish Marine Recreation and Tourism Survey.

LUC carried out the 2015 Scottish Marine Recreation and Tourism and Tourism Survey on behalf of the Scottish Government.  The project was designed to fill a major knowledge gap by providing data on people’s visits to the coast – where they go, what they do, how much they spend.

We used an innovative, web-based survey to collect data about the recreational activities people value around the Scottish coast. The results provide important new insights into people’s use of the coast, suggesting that, spending during coastal recreation and tourism trips contributes up to £3.7bn to the Scottish economy.

The Awards for Research Excellence are run by the RTPI to recognise and promote high quality, impactful spatial planning research from RTPI accredited planning schools, and planning consultancies around the world. There was tough competition to be named a finalist, with 87 entries to this year’s awards, a more than 40% increase on last year.

LUC’s Director of Planning, Nick James said:

“This was an exciting but challenging project, carried out in partnership with a wide range of marine organisations in Scotland.  We were delighted with the response, the richness of the data the survey collected and the interest that the survey results have prompted.  The results will help ensure that marine planning in Scotland looks after the resource which so many people value, while recognising its wider economic, community and environmental importance.”

The winners will be announced on 7 September during the 2016 UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference at Cardiff University.

The full list of finalists are available. See who won last year’s awards.