Guidelines and resources for developing likely and aspirational scenarios of rural and island places in a workshop

This submission includes material prepared for the workshop "Rural and Island Housing Futures – A Collaborative Scenario Workshop with the Coll Community," which was run on 17–18 February 2026 at the An Cridhe Community Centre, Isle of Coll, Scotland, UK. The workshop aimed to develop plausible (business-as-usual) and aspirational (desirable) scenarios for Coll and discuss how a rural housing policy could help move from the former to the latter. Although the process was adapted to the specific case study of the Isle of Coll, the material can be used to run scenario workshops in rural and island places more broadly. The workshop was part of Activity 3.2 "Stakeholder Scenario Consultation" of the project "JHI-E1-1 – Informing a socially and spatially just future for the Scottish rural economy: Pinpointing opportunities, assets and support needs," funded by the Strategic Research Programme (2022–2027) of the Scottish Government’s Rural & Environment Science & Analytical Services (RESAS) Division. The material includes: (1) Guidelines to co-develop scenarios with workshop participants (file "Scenario_instructions_v.2026-03-05.pdf"); (2) A poster illustrating key drivers of change in rural areas and potential local outcomes, whose combination represents a scenario (file "Drivers&outcomes_poster_v.2026-02-05.pptx"); (3) An Excel file to input the votes on the relevance of the drivers, the likelihood and desirability of their outcomes, and the impact of housing on each driver (file "Scenario_results_table_v.2026-03-05.xlsx").