Employment land supply and resisting a loss of allocation

An employment land assessment supporting the loss of an allocation has to answer one question: is there a reasonable prospect of the site being used for employment purposes. National policy does not require the indefinite protection of allocated employment land where that prospect has gone, and it expects applications for alternative uses to be judged on their merits with regard to market signals and the relative need for different land uses. The difficulty is evidential rather than political. Councils have seen a great many marketing reports written to produce a predetermined answer, and they read them accordingly.

So the case for release stands or falls on three things: a marketing exercise that a reasonable occupier would have responded to, a supply analysis showing the authority is not short of employment land, and an honest account of why the site cannot work.

Why employment allocations are protected

Allocated and safeguarded employment land does a specific job in a local plan. It underpins the economic strategy, it provides for forecast jobs growth, and it offers somewhere for existing businesses to relocate when their current premises are redeveloped for housing.

Lose too much of it and the authority faces a shortfall it cannot easily replace, because employment land is harder to allocate than housing land and generally produces lower land values. That asymmetry is the whole reason the protection exists. Housing outbids industry on almost every site, so without a policy brake the industrial estates go first.

Policy wording varies and the distinction matters. A site allocated for employment in the plan, a site within a defined existing employment area, and a site safeguarded for future employment use attract different tests. Read the policy before writing anything, because an argument aimed at the wrong test wastes the evidence.

The marketing evidence councils expect

Marketing evidence is the heart of the case. What the authority is looking for is proof that the site was properly offered to the employment market, not that it was listed and ignored.

A credible marketing report contains:

• The identity of the agent instructed, with their employment and industrial credentials rather than a residential practice.
• The date the instruction began and ended, with no gaps.
• The quoting price or rent, and the basis on which it was set.
• The particulars themselves, so the authority can see how the site was presented.
• A schedule of every enquiry, with the date, the enquirer's requirement and the reason it did not proceed.
• Evidence of the channels used: agency boards, online listings, direct approaches to local occupiers, and the local authority's own inward investment team.

The enquiry schedule is where most reports fall down. An exercise producing no enquiries at all over two years invites the question of whether anyone knew the site was available. An exercise producing twelve enquiries that all failed on a single physical constraint is a much stronger case, because it identifies the reason rather than asserting a lack of demand.

Approach the council's economic development team directly as part of the exercise and record the response. It costs nothing and it removes an obvious objection.

Duration, price and terms of the marketing exercise

Policies and supplementary guidance commonly ask for 12 to 24 months of active marketing, and the period is usually stated in the authority's own document. Check it, because a 12 month exercise against a policy expecting 24 will be rejected without the merits being considered.

Price is the most common ground of challenge. A quoting price set at residential land value, or at a figure reflecting the hope of an alternative use, is not a marketing exercise. The test is whether the site was offered at a price and on terms that reflect its lawful employment use and its condition.

Flexibility on terms deserves particular attention. A site offered only as a whole for freehold sale has been offered to a very small market. The same site offered in subdivided units on flexible leases may well find an occupier, and an authority will say so.

Showing that employment use is no longer viable

Where marketing has failed, the next limb is why. Viability evidence closes the gap between an absence of interest and a conclusion that employment use is not deliverable.

The appraisal has to compare real options rather than asserting one. Refurbishment of the existing building for continued employment use. Redevelopment for new employment floorspace. A mixed use scheme with employment re-provision. And the proposed alternative use. Each with build costs, values, finance and a residual land value.

Three inputs do most of the work:

1. A condition survey of the existing building, since obsolescence arguments need evidence of what is wrong with it rather than its age.
2. Employment rental and yield evidence from the local market, dated and sourced from transactions.
3. Abnormal costs, which on former industrial land often include contamination, demolition and service diversions.

Present it in the format you would use for any other appraisal, so it can be interrogated line by line. A Viability Assessment following the RICS approach is the right vehicle, and councils usually expect a suitably qualified author with professional review before it is relied on. Expect the authority to commission its own scrutiny, and read independent review of a viability appraisal before you submit, because the reviewer will test your inputs rather than your conclusion.

Where the site is sitting empty during the process, interim occupation can help or hurt. A short-term letting shows the building has some utility, and the way meanwhile use affects land value can cut across a viability argument built on vacancy.

Class E flexibility and the gap it leaves in protection

Since the 2020 amendments to the Use Classes Order, movement within Class E does not involve development at all. An office in Class E(g)(i) can become a gym, a nursery, a medical use or a shop without planning permission.

That has two consequences for employment land cases. Protection of office floorspace through use class policy is much weaker than it was, so an authority resisting the loss of an office allocation may be protecting something it cannot actually control. And a developer with an office building has intermediate options short of residential conversion, which the authority may argue should have been marketed too.

General industrial use in Class B2 and storage and distribution in Class B8 sit outside Class E and retain their protection. So the strength of the policy case varies sharply between an office allocation and an operating industrial estate, and the evidence should be pitched accordingly.

The weight of an employment land review

The authority's employment land review or economic development needs assessment sets out the quantitative and qualitative supply position. It is the document that decides whether your site matters to the overall supply.

Read it properly. Four things to look for: the total supply against the identified requirement, the proportion of supply that is actually available and serviced, whether your site is counted in the supply at all, and the date of the assessment.

Age is the strongest argument available to an applicant. An assessment prepared before a plan adopted some years ago, using forecasts that have since been overtaken, carries less weight than current market evidence. Where you can show that allocated sites in the supply have not come forward either, the point sharpens considerably.

An Employment Land Assessment is the place to set this analysis out, site by site, with the supply arithmetic shown rather than summarised.

Presenting the case for release

Structure the submission so each policy test is answered in order, with the evidence attached to it:

1. The policy applying to the site, quoted, with the tests identified.
2. The site's physical constraints, with a condition survey and a plan.
3. The marketing exercise, with the full enquiry schedule as an appendix.
4. The viability comparison of employment and alternative options.
5. The supply analysis, showing the effect of releasing this site.
6. The replacement or mitigation offered, whether that is employment floorspace elsewhere on the site, a financial contribution, or training and local employment commitments.
7. The economic effects of the proposal, where an Economic Impact Assessment can quantify construction and end-use employment.

That last element is often left out and it is the one that gives an officer something positive to write. A release case built entirely on failure gives the committee nothing to approve. A release case that shows what the site will deliver instead, in jobs as well as homes, reads very differently.

Browse the report types on PlanScope to see which employment, viability and economic documents a release case is likely to need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the adopted policy wording and 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.