Employment land assessment: evidencing need for new units

An employment land assessment supporting a new industrial or logistics scheme has to answer one question: is there a need for this floorspace that existing and allocated supply cannot meet. Everything else in the document is evidence for that. Officers read the conclusion first, then look for the data behind it, and a report that leads with a description of the local economy before reaching the point loses them on page four.

The exercise is the mirror image of justifying the loss of employment land, and the evidence runs the other way. Here you are showing a shortage rather than an obsolescence.

What the assessment has to demonstrate

Four propositions, in this order.

There is demand for the type of floorspace proposed, in this location, at the scale proposed. The existing stock cannot meet it, either because it is fully occupied or because it is the wrong specification. The allocated supply cannot meet it either, whether because the allocations are undeliverable, differently specified or already committed. And the proposed site can meet it, with the access, the power and the labour catchment the occupier needs.

National policy gives considerable weight to the need to support economic growth and productivity, and asks decision makers to take account of local business needs and wider opportunities for development. That is the hook, but it is not a substitute for evidence about this market.

Write the four propositions as headings and answer each with data. A document structured that way is harder to argue with than one organised by data source.

Sources for supply and take-up

Use published series where they exist, and say what each one does and does not capture.

The council's own evidence base is the first place to look. Most authorities have an economic development needs assessment or employment land review prepared for the local plan, and a report that engages with the council's own study carries more weight than one that ignores it. Where your conclusion differs from theirs, say why, with the specific assumption you disagree with.

Take-up is the series people misuse. Take-up measures what transacted, which is constrained by what was available, so in a market with no supply the take-up figure looks weak precisely because demand cannot be satisfied. Present it alongside availability rather than alone.

Vacancy rates and the quality of existing stock

A headline vacancy rate is close to useless without a breakdown. Some vacancy is healthy, because a market with no empty units cannot accommodate movement. What matters is whether the vacant floorspace is capable of meeting the demand identified.

Survey the vacant stock rather than counting it. For each unit record the floor area, clear internal height, yard depth, loading arrangement, power supply capacity, condition, energy performance rating and how long it has stood empty. A unit with six metre eaves and no yard is not competing for an occupier needing fifteen metres and a fifty metre service yard.

Energy performance has become a real constraint on older stock, because minimum standards restrict letting below a threshold rating and upgrading a 1970s shed can cost more than its value. Units in that position are functionally unavailable even though they appear in the vacancy figures. Vacant premises and reoccupation covers the related question of why units sit empty when they look lettable.

The output of this section should be a reconciled figure: total vacant floorspace, less the part that cannot meet the identified requirement, giving the effective supply.

Evidencing unmet demand

This is where reports are thin, because the evidence is qualitative and applicants are reluctant to disclose commercial information.

What actually helps: a record of enquiries received for the type of space, with dates, size requirements and outcomes. Requirements registered with the local authority's economic development team. Documented cases of businesses that have left the area or expanded elsewhere for want of space. Pre-let interest or heads of terms, redacted if necessary, and evidence of a specific occupier requirement where one exists.

Anonymised evidence is acceptable and usual. What is not acceptable is an assertion that demand exists without any record behind it, and a report that says demand is strong without naming a single enquiry invites the officer to discount the whole section.

Where an Economic Impact Assessment accompanies the application, its job creation figures should come from the same floorspace assumptions, using published employment density ratios for the use in question. An inconsistency between the two documents is the first thing a reviewer finds.

Sector-specific requirements

Generic floorspace numbers hide the constraint. Logistics, light industrial and research uses want different things, and the specification is often what rules out the alternatives.

For large-scale distribution, the controlling factors are usually clear internal height, yard depth and turning, HGV access to the strategic road network, the ability to operate 24 hours, power supply capacity for electric fleets and refrigeration, and a labour catchment reachable within a reasonable drive time by public transport as well as by car. Any one of these can eliminate an allocated site.

Set out the occupier specification explicitly, then test each alternative site against it. That table is the heart of the assessment, and it is what makes the sequential argument credible rather than assertive. Access assumptions should be consistent with the Transport Assessment, particularly the assumed vehicle movements and the routeing.

Relating the evidence to the local plan position

Check three things about the plan. Its adoption date, whether its employment evidence base is still current, and whether the allocations it relies on have come forward.

An allocation that has sat undeveloped for eight years is evidence about deliverability, and the reasons matter, whether ownership, access, ground conditions, viability or flood risk. A list of allocations that have not been built is stronger evidence than an argument about whether the plan is out of date.

Where the plan is old and its employment evidence predates a structural shift in the market, say so plainly and give the date. Avoid arguing the plan is out of date as a general proposition when the specific point is narrower and better supported.

Making the case for an unallocated site

The case has to cover need, alternatives and acceptability together. Need is the demand and supply analysis above. Alternatives is the site-by-site test against the occupier specification, covering allocated sites and any available site within the relevant search area. Acceptability is the ordinary planning assessment of landscape, highways, amenity, ecology and flood risk.

One procedural point that catches people. Offices are a main town centre use, so an out-of-centre office proposal attracts the sequential approach in national policy, while industrial and storage uses do not. Mixed schemes need that split handled explicitly rather than assumed away.

A well-built Employment Land Assessment ends with the reconciliation: identified requirement, effective supply, residual need, and how the proposal meets it. Three numbers and a paragraph. Everything before that is working.

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.

Browse all 66 PlanScope report types to see the evidence base an employment scheme usually needs.