Local plan call for sites: submitting a site properly

A call for sites is the council's invitation to landowners and promoters to put land forward for assessment in a new local plan, and the submissions feed the land availability assessment that underpins every allocation. A weak submission is not usually rejected. It is assessed as uncertain, filed, and then not allocated, which is a worse outcome than a refusal because nobody tells you why. Getting a call for sites submission right means answering the three questions the assessment methodology actually asks: is the site suitable, is it available, and is development achievable.

What a call for sites is for

The authority needs a pool of candidate sites large enough to test options against its housing and employment requirement. The call for sites builds that pool.

What happens to your submission is prescribed by national guidance on housing and economic land availability assessment, which sets out a staged methodology: identify sites and broad locations, assess each for suitability, availability and achievability, consider windfall contributions, review whether the assessed supply meets the requirement, and publish the evidence base.

Submission does not mean allocation and it does not confer any planning status. What it does is get the site into the evidence base, which is the only route to an allocation and a useful position even without one, since a site assessed as suitable but not allocated is a stronger prospect on a planning application than a site nobody has looked at.

Information the authority asks for

Most authorities use a form. The content varies and the substance does not.

1. A site boundary drawn on an up-to-date plan at a stated scale, with the area in hectares. Draw it to include everything you need, including access land and any area for drainage or green infrastructure.
2. The current and previous use of the land, with dates where a previous use matters.
3. Ownership, whether the submitting party owns all of it, and the names of other owners where it is in multiple ownership.
4. Any option, promotion agreement or conditional contract, and its expiry.
5. The proposed use and an indicative capacity, with the assumptions behind the number.
6. Known constraints: flood risk, trees, heritage, ecology, contamination, overhead lines, public rights of way, easements.
7. Access arrangements, including whether the frontage is in your control.
8. The timescale over which you expect delivery.

Incomplete ownership and uncontrolled access are the two answers that move a site from available to uncertain faster than anything else. Deal with them openly and explain the route to resolving them rather than leaving the box blank.

Evidence that improves the assessment

Officers assessing hundreds of sites against a deadline reward submissions that let them tick a box with confidence.

The documents that earn their cost at this stage are a constraints plan showing the designations overlaid on the site boundary, a concept layout showing the developable area after constraints and the indicative capacity, an access appraisal with visibility splays drawn, and a short screening note on each of flood risk, ecology and heritage.

Where the land is agricultural, an Agricultural Land Classification is worth commissioning early. Policy protects the best and most versatile land, and the default assumption from a desk study is often worse than the reality on the ground. A field mapped as grade 3 in the provisional national series can turn out to be subgrade 3b, and that distinction changes the policy position materially. The survey needs a soil scientist and cannot be done when the ground is waterlogged.

What is not worth commissioning yet is detailed design, full surveys with seasonal windows, or a viability appraisal. Those come later, and spending on them before the site is in the pool is money at risk.

Availability, suitability and achievability

The three tests are assessed separately and a site has to pass all of them.

Availability is where rural submissions most often fail, and the cause is usually a tenancy. A holding let on a tenancy with security of tenure is not available in the sense the methodology means, and the assessment will say so unless the submission explains the position and the route to vacant possession.

Achievability is tested lightly at this stage and more seriously later. Flag abnormal costs honestly, because a site allocated on an optimistic assumption and then found unviable damages your credibility with the same officers on the next plan.

Landowner intentions and options

The methodology asks whether the landowner has expressed an intention to develop or to sell. A signed statement answers that in one line, and its absence leaves the officer guessing.

Include a short letter from every owner confirming willingness to bring the land forward for the proposed use within the plan period. Where a promotion or option agreement exists, say so and give the expiry date, because an agreement expiring before the plan is adopted undermines the availability case.

Where the land is in multiple ownership, a collaboration agreement or at least a joint letter is worth the legal cost. Sites in fragmented ownership with no evidence of cooperation are routinely assessed as not available even where every owner is willing.

What happens after submission

Expect a long silence. The authority will assess the submissions, publish a land availability assessment listing every site with its conclusions, and then use that evidence to prepare draft options.

Read your site's entry when the assessment is published. If the conclusion rests on a factual error, a misread constraint or an assumption you can disprove, that is the moment to write with evidence. The assessment is then consulted on through the plan preparation stages set out in the local planning regulations, with a draft plan consultation followed by a publication stage, examination and adoption.

Where a neighbourhood plan covers the area, that adds another layer, since the question of which neighbourhood plan applies to a site affects both the allocation prospects and the policies a later application is judged against.

Timing within the plan process

Calls for sites usually open at the start of a plan review, and authorities frequently run a second call later where the supply is short. Both are opportunities.

The practical advice is to be ready before the call opens. Authorities publish their local development scheme, which sets out the plan timetable, and the call for sites window is often only four to six weeks. A site with a constraints plan, a concept layout, an access appraisal and signed landowner letters already in hand can be submitted inside that window. One starting from scratch cannot.

If you miss the window, submit anyway with a covering note. Late sites are sometimes picked up, particularly where the authority's supply position is weak, and the housing land supply position is the thing to check before deciding how hard to push.

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.