Strategic Land Promotion: Getting A Site Allocated

Strategic land is a site you know has development potential, but it’s just too soon to be making an application.

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By law, each Local Planning Authority (LPA) in the UK must prepare what is known as a Local Plan. This document sets out how government planning policy is to be applied within the LPA’s area of responsibility.

Policies are typically grouped around land uses, so most local plans will have sections dealing with housing, employment, leisure, open space and town centres. Most will also have policies relating to specific settlements, sites or protected areas. When determining applications, the LPA must refer to any relevant local plan policies in its decision.

The other role of local plans is to earmark and safeguard sites for future development. When you hear words like allocation, this refers to sites which have been allotted a specific use in their local plan. Once a site is allocated, any application on that site for that specific use should be acceptable in principle.

LPAs rely on private landowners to supply them with sites that can be allocated for development. If you have a site which fits certain criteria set out by the LPA, we can help you get it allocated in the next version of the local plan. This is a long-term process, so patience will be required, but it can turn a nondescript corner of land into a valuable pension pot or an heirloom for the next generation.

Local plans are replaced, on average, once every seven years. When work on a new plan begins, LPAs will often launch a ‘Call for Sites’ exercise. This is an invitation for landowners and their agents to submit sites to the LPA and to demonstrate how these sites fit the LPA’s allocation criteria. We can assist in making these planning representations. For most forms of built development, your site will need to be well located in relation to existing roads, settlements and services and must be able to overcome any constraints such as flood risk, listed buildings or loss of habitat.

If the LPA is interested in your site, we can continue to support it as the local plan takes shape. This may involve exercises such as concept master planning, transport modelling and public engagement. The local plan covers residential planning, commercial planning and tourism and leisure planning, so even if your site does not meet the criteria for housing, there may be other options.

Our land promotion team works alongside the planning team, identifying and advising how best to unlock potential and maximise development value.

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