Costing an employment land assessment for an allocated site

An employment land assessment cost is driven by evidence gathering rather than by analysis. The floorspace arithmetic takes a day. Assembling two years of marketing records, interrogating the council's own employment land review, and getting an agent to put occupier demand in writing takes weeks, and that is where the fee sits. On an allocated site where you are arguing for release to another use, expect the marketing and demand evidence to be the largest line in the quote.

The structure of the argument explains why. Adopted policy on allocated employment land usually sets a sequence: demonstrate the site is no longer suitable or viable for employment use, demonstrate there is no reasonable prospect of it being taken up, and only then come to the alternative use. Each limb needs its own evidence, and the second limb is the one councils test hardest.

What the assessment has to demonstrate

Read the policy first and write the headings from it. Most allocated employment policies require some combination of the following.

• That the site is no longer suitable for employment use, judged against what modern occupiers need.
• That there is no reasonable prospect of employment take-up within the plan period.
• That marketing has been genuine, at a realistic rent or price, over a stated period.
• That the loss would not create a shortfall against the authority's identified employment land requirement.
• That any alternative use delivers benefits that outweigh the loss.

If the adopted policy contains a specified marketing period, the assessment has to meet it or explain the departure. That single line in the plan often determines whether the application is submittable this year or next, so check it before anything else is commissioned.

Supply and demand evidence from the plan

The council's own evidence base is your starting point and sometimes your best argument. Authorities commission employment land reviews to support plan preparation, and those documents set out the identified requirement, the committed supply and the assessed quality of individual sites.

Three things to look for. Whether your site is named and how it is graded. Whether the authority's supply figure already exceeds its requirement, which weakens the shortfall objection. And whether the review is old enough that market conditions have moved, which cuts both ways and should be acknowledged rather than hidden.

Where the authority publishes an annual monitoring report with employment completions and the remaining supply, use it. An argument built on the council's own published figures is harder to dismiss than one built on a consultant's independent estimate of the same thing.

Marketing evidence and the period expected

This is the part applicants get wrong most often, usually because the marketing happened before anybody thought about the planning argument.

Councils look for marketing that was real. That means board advertising on site, listing with a commercial agent, inclusion on relevant online platforms, a quoting rent or price that an agent will confirm was at market level, and a record of enquiries with the reason each one did not proceed. A covering letter saying the site was marketed for 18 months, with no supporting material, carries almost no weight.

Where the marketing period in the policy has not been completed, there are two honest options: wait and keep marketing properly, or submit and accept that the officer will weigh an incomplete period. Arguing that a shorter period was sufficient needs market reasoning, not assertion.

Site suitability for modern occupier requirements

Suitability is an engineering and logistics question before it is a planning one. Modern industrial and logistics occupiers have requirements that a lot of allocated land from an older plan simply cannot meet.

The ones that usually decide it: clear internal height, yard depth for articulated vehicle manoeuvring, access geometry from the adopted highway, floor loading, power capacity, and the proximity of residential neighbours constraining hours of operation. A 0.4 hectare allocation behind terraced housing with a 3.5 metre access is not a logistics site, and saying so with dimensions is more persuasive than saying it with adjectives.

Get the power capacity position in writing from the distribution network operator. On employment sites this has become one of the sharpest constraints, and a documented capacity limit is a fact the officer can verify rather than a claim to be weighed.

Viability of retaining the employment use

Where suitability alone does not carry the argument, viability does the remaining work. The assessment compares the residual value of an employment scheme on the site against the cost of delivering it, using the approach in national viability guidance.

That is a Viability Assessment in substance, and councils expect a suitably qualified author with experience of the method, with professional review strongly advised before submission. The inputs that matter are build cost for the employment scheme, achievable rent and yield, the land value benchmark, and the abnormal costs the site carries. A negative residual value for an employment scheme, properly evidenced, is a strong argument. One built on optimistic build costs is picked apart by the council's reviewer at your expense, because the authority will usually recover its review fee from the applicant.

An illustrative example

Illustrative only: a 1.2 hectare allocated employment site, vacant for four years, with a 1980s single storey unit of 2,800 m² at 4.2 metres clear height, a 14 metre yard and access through a residential street. The assessment would cover: the authority's employment land review grading of the site, its latest monitoring figures on supply against requirement, 24 months of marketing records with an enquiry schedule and agent's letter, a measured survey confirming the height and yard dimensions against current occupier requirements, a distribution network operator capacity response, and a viability appraisal of refurbishment and of redevelopment for employment use. Six evidence strands, assembled over roughly three months, then a short report.

Alternative use arguments and the policy test

Once the loss is justified, the alternative use has to be justified on its own terms. Do not merge the two arguments. An officer who sees the housing benefits used to justify the employment loss will say the policy sequence has been bypassed, and that is a defensible refusal reason.

Where the alternative use brings economic benefits of its own, an Economic Impact Assessment quantifies them, and on a mixed scheme retaining some employment floorspace the two documents work together. Retaining a smaller quantum of employment space is often the pragmatic landing point, and it is worth modelling that option before submission rather than being pushed into it at committee.

Commissioning alongside the planning statement

Sequence the work so the evidence exists before the narrative is written.

1. Read the adopted policy and note the marketing period and any specified evidence.
2. Commission the marketing exercise, if it has not already run, and keep contemporaneous records.
3. Obtain the council's employment land review and monitoring figures.
4. Get the measured survey, access assessment and utility capacity position.
5. Commission the viability appraisal once build costs and values are settled.
6. Then write the Employment Land Assessment and the planning statement from the evidence.

Running step six first is the expensive mistake, because the report then has to be rewritten when the evidence contradicts it.

Application fees sit on top of all this and are set separately, with the fee calculated by floorspace and site area rather than by the evidence base you submit. PlanScope drafts the assessment structure, the policy framing and the evidence schedule in minutes, and its pricing is one free report, £50 per report, or £150 per month on the Professional tier, with the marketing records, survey data and viability inputs still coming from your team.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required.