What a to be confirmed flag in a draft report means

A to be confirmed flag in a planning report is a deliberate gap. Where a drafting tool has no reliable source for a site specific fact, it writes [TO BE CONFIRMED] in place of the figure instead of estimating one. Your job before submission is to replace every flag with a real number, a real date or a real name, from a document you can point to. An application that reaches the council with flags still in it will either be held at validation or read by the case officer as an unfinished document.

Why a drafting tool leaves a gap instead of a number

A postcode, a site photograph and a set of guided answers tell a drafting system a great deal about policy context and almost nothing about your building. The system can identify the local planning authority, check the site against flood mapping, listed building and conservation area records and designated nature conservation layers, and set out the policy tests that apply. It cannot measure your garden.

So the choice is between a plausible figure and an honest gap. A plausible figure is the more dangerous of the two. If a draft states a site area of 0.12 hectares and the real figure is 0.18, that number travels into the application form, the fee calculation and possibly the drainage assessment, and nobody notices until a consultee does the arithmetic. A flag cannot travel anywhere, because it is visible on every page it appears on.

This is the same logic behind the inserted flag in any drafted document. It converts a silent error into a visible task.

The facts a postcode cannot tell you

The gaps cluster into a small number of categories, and once you recognise them the list stops feeling arbitrary.

Two of those rows matter more than the rest on a small scheme. Dimensions, because they feed the application form, the fee and the description of development. And existing use, because the whole policy argument for a conversion or a change of use rests on what the building lawfully is now.

Where flags usually appear in a planning statement

In a Planning Statement the flags tend to land in the same four places.

The site description, where the area, boundaries, existing buildings and their dimensions belong. The proposal description, where floor areas, heights and materials go. The policy section, where the adopted plan policy references have to be the ones your council actually adopted, not generic equivalents. And the planning history, where previous application references and decision dates are needed, including any refusals you would rather not mention. Leave a refusal out and the officer will find it, which starts the assessment badly.

On a supporting technical report the pattern is different. Flags appear wherever a measured input is needed: the impermeable area in a drainage calculation, the distance to a neighbouring window in an amenity assessment, the species and stem diameter of a tree near the works.

Closing a flag with a source

Work through the flags in one pass, and record where each answer came from. A simple two column list beside the draft is enough, and it saves rework when a figure changes.

1. Take the dimensions from the drawings you are submitting, not from a tape measure and not from a property listing. The narrative and the drawings must agree, because a mismatch between the two is one of the most common reasons an officer asks for clarification.
2. Get the planning history from the council's online register by address, and note the reference and decision date for each entry.
3. Get the policy references from the adopted local plan on the council's website, checking the adoption date and whether a newer plan has superseded the one you are reading.
4. Check the site against the national planning data and flood mapping services for designations, then confirm anything that affects the scheme with the council.
5. Take ownership and boundary information from the registered title, and complete the correct ownership certificate.
6. For anything that needs a measurement of the ground itself, commission the survey.

Then read the document once more from the start. Replacing a flag often leaves a sentence that no longer scans, because the surrounding wording was written around a gap.

Flags that mean you need a survey, not a search

Some gaps cannot be closed from a desk, and recognising them early is the difference between a six week and a six month programme.

Ecology is the clearest case. If the draft flags bat activity or the presence of a protected species, no search closes it. A survey has to be carried out by a suitably licensed ecologist in the right season, and for a European protected species the licensing regime makes that a legal requirement rather than a preference. The same applies to land contamination, where reports are expected to follow BS 10175 and be prepared by suitably qualified and experienced persons, and to any report where a competent person is required by statute, such as a biodiversity net gain metric under the Environment Act 2021.

Ground levels, tree data to BS 5837:2012, structural condition and drainage capacity all sit in the same category. You can guess at them. The guess will be found.

Checking no flag survives to submission

Before you export the final document, search the text for the flag wording and for square brackets generally. Do it on the PDF as well as the draft, because a flag inside a table or a figure caption is easy to miss on screen.

Then run three cross checks. Do the areas in the narrative match the areas on the drawings and the figure on the application form. Do the policy numbers exist in the current adopted plan. Does the planning history section list every previous application the council's register shows for the site.

Where a genuine unknown remains, say what it is in plain words and explain how it will be resolved, rather than leaving a bracketed placeholder. A sentence stating that ground investigation is programmed and that results will be submitted to discharge the relevant condition is a professional position. A stray [TO BE CONFIRMED] is not.

If you would rather have someone else check it, the professional directory is the route to a reviewer who can look over a draft and sign it off where sign off is appropriate.

Why a gap is safer than a plausible number

An invented figure in a planning document carries three costs. It can make the application invalid, because the form and the fee depend on floor areas and site areas being right. It can mislead a consultee, and a drainage or highways response based on a wrong input has to be redone. And it damages the credibility of everything else in the document, because an officer who finds one number that does not add up will check the others.

None of that is an argument against drafting tools. It is an argument for the convention. A visible gap costs you 20 minutes with a scale rule. A confident wrong number can cost a determination period.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check what your local planning authority requires on its validation list, and take professional advice where a survey or a competent person is needed. See PlanScope pricing if you want to edit and version a draft rather than export it once, and browse the 66 report types to see which ones your project needs.

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.