Open Space Assessment: quantity, quality and accessibility

An Open Space Assessment works on three limbs, and a report that covers only the first will be sent back. Quantity asks whether there is enough space per head of population. Quality asks whether the space that exists is usable. Accessibility asks whether people can reach it within a reasonable walk. A development can create a quantitative surplus and still leave a neighbourhood with nowhere decent to go, which is why councils assess all three and why the deficiency argument is rarely settled by hectares alone.

Typologies and how open space is counted

Most English authorities still classify open space using the typology that came out of the old national assessment guidance, because their own open space studies were built on it and their local standards are expressed in its terms.

The usual categories are parks and gardens, natural and semi-natural green space, green corridors, outdoor sports facilities, amenity green space, provision for children and young people, allotments and community gardens, cemeteries and churchyards, and civic spaces.

Counting rules matter more than the list. Establish before you start whether the council counts school playing fields with no public access, privately owned land with a permissive path, highway verges, sustainable drainage basins, and incidental space below a stated minimum size. Different studies answer these differently, and using the wrong rule produces a provision figure that does not reconcile with the council's own.

Read the authority's open space study and adopt its rules, even where you disagree with them. An Open Space Assessment that recalculates the baseline on a different basis invites an argument about method instead of an argument about the scheme.

Quantity standards and where local figures come from

Local standards are normally expressed in hectares per 1,000 population, by typology, and they are set in the adopted local plan or a supplementary planning document following an evidence study.

Those standards are derived rather than borrowed. A council commissions an audit of existing provision, tests current provision against population, runs consultation on whether residents feel provision is adequate, and sets a standard that reflects local circumstances. National benchmark standards published by the charitable body that protects playing fields are often used as a reference point in that process, but the adopted local figure is what applies.

Apply the standard to the population the development will generate, using the occupancy assumptions the council uses. Those assumptions differ by dwelling size and tenure, and taking them from the council's own supplementary planning document rather than from a national average removes an easy point of disagreement.

Show the arithmetic. Number of dwellings by bedroom count, occupancy factor per type, resulting population, standard per 1,000, resulting requirement by typology. A table that an officer can check line by line will be checked and accepted. A single summary figure will be queried.

Auditing the quality of existing provision

Quality is assessed by site visit, scored against criteria set out in advance, and it is the limb that most often changes the outcome.

A workable quality audit visits each space within the study area, scores it against a consistent set of headings, and records the evidence. Typical headings cover access and entrances, paths and surfacing, equipment condition where present, planting and biodiversity value, cleanliness and litter, seating and shelter, signage and information, perceived safety including sightlines and lighting, and ancillary facilities such as toilets or parking where relevant.

The Green Flag Award criteria give a recognised structure for those headings, and several councils score against them directly.

Two disciplines make an audit defensible. Visit at a time when the space is in use, because an empty park at 9.30am on a Tuesday tells you little. And photograph everything scored, with the date, so that a later challenge can be answered without a return visit.

Accessibility catchments and walking distances

Accessibility is assessed as a walk from the home, along routes people can actually use, rather than as a straight line on a plan.

Local standards usually set a distance threshold per typology, with larger spaces given longer catchments. Natural England's accessible natural greenspace standard provides a national reference, starting with an accessible natural green space of at least 2 hectares within 300 metres of home, with further thresholds at larger sizes and distances. Check the current published version, and check whether the local plan has adopted it or set its own.

Map the catchment along the network, not as a circle. A park 250 metres away across a dual carriageway with no crossing is not within a 300 metre catchment in any meaningful sense, and an officer who walks the route will say so. Gradient, lighting, severance by railway or river, and the position of controlled crossings all belong in the analysis.

That network approach is also what makes the accessibility limb persuasive in health terms, and the reasoning overlaps with the material set out in a health impact assessment.

Working out deficiency or surplus

The output is a statement, by typology, of whether the area is in deficit or surplus before the development and after it.

1. Define the study area, using the catchment distances rather than a ward boundary.
2. Audit provision within that area by typology, applying the council's counting rules.
3. Establish the existing population from the most recent published estimates.
4. Apply the adopted standard to get the existing requirement, and compare.
5. Add the development population and recalculate.
6. Cross-check against the quality and accessibility findings, and state where a quantitative surplus is not a real one.

Be straight about the result. Where the assessment shows deficiency, say so and address it in the scheme. An assessment that manufactures a surplus by counting a golf course and an inaccessible playing field will be taken apart by the council's leisure officer, and the credibility of the rest of the document goes with it.

On-site provision against a commuted payment

Local policy usually sets a threshold above which open space must be provided on site, with a payment in lieu accepted below it or where on-site provision would be impractical.

The arguments for on-site provision are that it serves the residents who generate the need, that it can deliver biodiversity and drainage functions at the same time, and that it is visible in the layout. The arguments against are maintenance liability in perpetuity, the loss of developable area, and the risk of creating small fragments that serve nobody.

Where a payment is offered instead, the obligation has to meet the statutory tests for planning obligations: necessary to make the development acceptable, directly related to the development, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind. A payment towards a named project, in a defined location, with a spending period and a clawback, satisfies those tests far more comfortably than a contribution to a general fund.

Keep play provision separate in the calculation. It has its own standards, its own equipment specifications and its own catchments, and it is assessed through a Play Space Assessment.

Management and maintenance arrangements

Every square metre proposed on site needs a named future owner, a maintenance regime and a funding source. Councils will ask, and the answer shapes the section 106 drafting.

Three models are common. Adoption by the local authority, usually with a commuted maintenance sum covering a defined number of years. A management company funded by estate charges, which is increasingly scrutinised and unpopular with residents. Or transfer to a community trust or parish council, which works where the body is willing and capable and fails where it is neither.

Set out the specification alongside the model. Cutting frequencies, tree and shrub maintenance, litter and bin emptying, equipment inspection intervals, and the arrangements for replacement at the end of asset life. Tie that specification to the landscape drawings and, where relevant, to the Green Infrastructure Plan, so that the maintained thing and the consented thing are the same thing.

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.