Perth and Kinross:

New project 2024: Three, four bedroom “Eco Friendly” Homes. Nethermains of Kinnaird, Perthshire. With walled gardens and possible new build doctors surgery.

Proposals for a new house under this category are about more than the building itself. Sustainable living is a lifestyle approach where a person or household seek to reduce their carbon footprint by changing the ways in which they use energy and natural resources.

To be acceptable under this category it must firstly be demonstrated that a new house in a rural setting is essential as an integral part of an overall scheme for the management or use of land which will allow its occupants to be largely self-sufficient.
Whilst there are some everyday goods which cannot be produced locally, proposals must include the cultivation of land to produce crops and rear livestock at a scale so as to ensure that the household will not be dependent on car travel elsewhere in order to meet the majority of their basic food shopping needs.

Proposals under this category will be for one-off, bespoke single houses which are at the forefront of sustainability. They will be low impact in terms of their scale, construction materials and methods, and sources of energy and heating. The use of renewable technologies such as solar panels, ground and air source heat
pumps, and passive heating are now common place. To be acceptable under this category therefore, it must be demonstrated that the proposals go beyond those technologies which are widely available, and instead include new or innovative elements which are over and above what is already expected in modern building
projects.