Blueprint for the future: The Greater Muscat Structure Plan

Originally published in the August edition of Middle East Consultant magazine. 

Lee French, Partner and Managing Director MENA discusses how The Greater Muscat Structure Plan goes beyond just masterplanning, while integrating sustainability, economic development and the environment at its core.

As cities across the Middle East deal with rapid urbanisation and climate pressures, Oman is emerging with a planning model that is attracting regional attention. At the centre of this transformation is the Greater Muscat Structure Plan, an initiative that demonstrates how long-term national ambitions can be translated into implementable urban strategies.

For French, the significance of the project extends well beyond Muscat itself.

"The Greater Muscat Structure Plan is significant because it demonstrates how ambitious national visions can be translated into a practical, deliverable outcomes at the metropolitan scale. A key driver was aligning the plan with Oman Vision 2040 and the country's Net Zero 2050 commitments, ensuring that long-term national aspirations were embedded within day-to-day planning and investment decisions," he says.

French explains that the project moves beyond conventional master planning by integrating sustainability, mobility, infrastructure, economic development and environmental priorities into a single vision.

"This went beyond producing a traditional land-use plan. The project established targeted urban policies and strategies, supported by an integrated sustainability and smart city approach that brought together infrastructure, mobility, environment, economic development and social priorities under a single vision."

The Greater Muscat Structure Plan also forms part of Cundall's wider contribution to Oman's planning agenda, alongside the Greater Salalah Structure Plan, the Ibri Structure Plan and Salalah Smart City. Together, these initiatives illustrate how national policy can be translated into regional and local frameworks that support sustainable growth, infrastructure investment and economic diversification.

French highlights the collaborative process that underpinned the project. "Working closely with stakeholders, Cundall played a key role in developing this approach through a comprehensive sustainability and smart city framework comprising more than 100 indicators and KPIs across nine thematic areas. This provides a measurable pathway for tracking progress, strengthening accountability and embedding sustainability into decision-making," he adds.

One of the defining characteristics of the Greater Muscat Structure Plan is its commitment to balancing sustainability, connectivity and competitiveness without compromising Oman's cultural identity. According to French, preserving Muscat's distinctive character was fundamental to the planning process.

"The principle of the Structure Plan was not only to balance these three ambitions but to integrate them within a single framework rooted in Muscat’s unique geography, history and heritage," states French.

He explains, "Preserving the landscape driven topography, the neighbourhood constructs and the building form identity was fundamental to the strategy. Through sensitive climate resilient integration, 15-minute communities and carefully defined building height and typology guidance, the plan retains the core Omani identity while developing resilience and future aspirations. Through our work on both Muscat and Salalah, we have seen that the most successful plans are those that strengthen local identity rather than replace it."

A new planning framework for Oman

Taken collectively, Oman's major structure plans reveal an evolution in the country's approach to regional planning. French believes they represent a move away from fragmented development towards an integrated national framework.

Collectively, these projects demonstrate a real drive to adopt and roll out true regional framework. which moves away from isolated expansion. This approach ensures that everything is connected, linking Vision 2040 to the Oman National Spatial Strategy (ONSS), and into Structure Plans, ensuring that national aspirations are translated into coordinated, scalable and deliverable development outcomes at every level," he continues.
This long-term perspective is already reshaping how cities and regions are planned.

"Oman’s approach demonstrates that long-term planning is most effective when it is coupled with a clear path to implementation. By aligning infrastructure, development, environmental priorities and stakeholder interests around a shared vision, the structure plans are helping shape more resilient, connected and sustainable places. The result is not just a vision for the future, but a practical framework for delivering it," explains French.
French also points to the importance of phased implementation.

"The phased spatial strategies provide a clear roadmap for sustainable growth, replacing reactive planning with a proactive, long-term approach. By considering environmental, economic and urban development priorities together, they create a coherent blueprint to follow, ensuring that every strategy and investment decision remains aligned with the national aspirations," he remarks.
Regional structure plans also play a vital role in strengthening the relationship between cities, surrounding communities and economic opportunities.

"Large-scale structure plans create value by understanding how people, infrastructure, employment centres and services interact across an entire region. By bringing together investors, developers and government authorities around a shared vision, they ensure that growth is planned holistically rather than through isolated projects. Extensive stakeholder engagement throughout the process helps align priorities, guide investment, and create stronger connections between communities, economic centres and critical infrastructure," he says.

This philosophy has been reiterated through Cundall's work across Muscat, Salalah and Ibri.

"This approach has been a common theme across Cundall's work on the Greater Muscat Structure Plan, Greater Salalah Structure Plan and Ibri Structure Plan. One of Muscat's most pressing challenges is accommodating population growth while managing urban sprawl and its associated infrastructure, environmental and resource impacts. The Structure Plan addresses this by promoting more coordinated, sustainable patterns of growth that make better use of infrastructure investment, protect environmental assets and improve long-term resilience," he continues.

While many countries develop ambitious national strategies, implementation often proves the greatest challenge. French believes Oman's planning hierarchy has successfully bridged this gap.

"Many countries have ambitious national visions, but translating high-level aspirations into practical, deliverable outcomes can be challenging. Oman has successfully bridged this gap through a clear planning hierarchy. Vision 2040 establishes the country's long-term ambitions, the Oman National Spatial Strategy translates these into spatial priorities, and the structure plans convert them into implementable policies, projects and investment frameworks," states French.

"By developing spatially at the regional and city level, the structure plans transformed national economic, population and climate objectives into development strategies grounded in local realities. This ensured that growth aspirations were supported by realistic infrastructure requirements, land-use policies and delivery mechanisms," he adds.

Building climate resilience at regional scale

Climate resilience has become a defining feature of Oman's planning agenda, particularly through the adoption of regional-scale strategies. French argues that many climate risks cannot be addressed through isolated projects. "Climate risks do not stop at site or municipal boundaries. Challenges such as extreme heat, water security and environmental protection are interconnected and often span entire regions, making a regional-scale approach essential for developing effective, long-term resilience strategies," he notes.

Furthermore, French explains how national climate ambitions are embedded throughout the planning hierarchy.

"Oman's planning framework provides a clear example of how national climate ambitions can be translated into local action. By embedding climate resilience objectives from Vision 2040 and the Oman National Spatial Strategy into regional and city-level structure plans, a consistent framework is established for all stakeholders to follow. This ensures that climate goals are not simply aspirational but are supported by tangible policies, infrastructure investments and development controls," states French.

Without such coordination, he warns, progress can become fragmented.

"Without this coordinated approach, climate action can become fragmented, with individual projects or authorities pursuing isolated solutions that fail to address wider regional challenges. Regional planning enables integrated responses, aligning government departments, infrastructure providers, developers and local communities around shared priorities and outcomes," says French.

He also points to the importance of dedicated implementation strategies.

"The development of a dedicated Urban Risk and Climate Change Mitigation Strategy provided both clear targets and a practical delivery pathway, ensuring that national resilience objectives were translated into locally relevant actions. This creates greater consistency, supports informed decision-making and helps deliver more resilient, sustainable communities across Oman," he adds.

Another defining feature of Oman's approach is its infrastructure-first philosophy. French believes infrastructure should lead development rather than follow it.

"Across our work on Muscat, Salalah and Ibri, we have consistently found that infrastructure must be treated as a primary driver of development rather than a response to it. By planning infrastructure from the outset, cities can accommodate growth more efficiently, avoid costly future interventions and ensure development is resilient, connected and sustainable. The most successful cities are those where infrastructure and development evolve together, not independently of one another," explains French.

"In setting out the structure plan and the infrastructure first approach, it allowed the consortium to integrate the growing needs of the population, the economy and the environment in a way that removed the risk of reactivity and unplanned or underutilised infrastructure. It also enabled infrastructure to be an equal driver in planning for development, the phasing of it and the criticality of key infrastructure. This spans everything from the location and resilience of infrastructure assets to the development of Transit Oriented Developments (TOD) and overall urban connectivity," he continues.
 

Lessons for the region

French believes other cities facing infrastructure challenges can learn valuable lessons from Oman's collaborative approach.

"The biggest lesson is the importance of early and continuous collaboration. Oman has demonstrated that bringing infrastructure providers, planners, authorities and other stakeholders together from the outset leads to more coordinated and effective decision-making. For cities dealing with legacy infrastructure, this helps avoid fragmented approaches, prioritise investment and ensure upgrades support long-term growth, resilience and quality of life," he says.

"For cities seeking to modernise or retrofit legacy infrastructure, the lesson is clear: investment decisions should be guided by a shared long-term vision rather than short-term requirements. Early coordination between planners, infrastructure providers and government agencies leads to more efficient investment, reduced disruption and better outcomes for communities," explains French.
Looking beyond Oman, French believes the model has broad international relevance.

"The success of the Greater Muscat Structure Plan lies in its fully integrated approach, bringing together policy, planning, engineering, and environmental expertise into a single, cohesive vision," he states.
While every city has its own context, he says the principles remain widely applicable.

"While each city will have its own social, economic and environmental context, the fundamental lesson remains the same. This approach is highly transferable to emerging markets across MENA and beyond, requiring the foresight, commitment and technical capability to translate an overarching vision into practical spatial planning frameworks. The key lesson from Oman is that meaningful change happens when long-term aspirations are supported by clear implementation pathways that connect strategy with delivery on the ground. Cities do not become more sustainable, resilient or competitive through vision alone; success comes from translating ambition into coordinated policies, infrastructure investment and place-based action," concludes French.