Using MAGIC to build a constraints layer list

A MAGIC map constraints check gives you most of the natural environment designations for a site in about ten minutes, and it gives you nothing at all on flood zones, listed buildings, conservation areas, Green Belt boundaries or Tree Preservation Orders. Knowing that split is the whole skill. Defra's MAGIC viewer publishes the environmental datasets held by Natural England, Defra, the Forestry Commission and the Environment Agency in one map interface, so it is the right first stop for ecology and landscape constraints and the wrong place to look for anything the local planning authority or Historic England maintains.

Treat the output as a screening pass that tells you which specialists to appoint and which datasets to interrogate properly.

What MAGIC holds and what it leaves out

The viewer is organised into themed layer groups. Designations covers Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Special Areas of Conservation, Special Protection Areas, Ramsar sites, National Nature Reserves, Local Nature Reserves, National Parks and National Landscapes, together with their boundaries and unit numbers. Habitats and Species carries the Priority Habitat Inventory and various species records. Woodland carries the Ancient Woodland Inventory and the National Forest Inventory. Land-Based Schemes shows agri-environment agreements. Soils carries the Agricultural Land Classification and the provisional grades.

What it does not carry is the set of constraints most refusals actually turn on. Flood Zones 2 and 3 for planning purposes come from the Environment Agency's own flood map service. Listed buildings, scheduled monuments and registered parks come from the National Heritage List for England. Conservation areas, Green Belt, Article 4 directions, local plan allocations, Local Wildlife Sites and Tree Preservation Orders sit with the council, and many of them are now mirrored on planning.data.gov.uk. Air Quality Management Areas are published by Defra on a separate service.

So the honest description of a MAGIC pass is a partial constraints check. Say that in your report.

The layers worth switching on for a first pass

Start with a tight set rather than everything at once, because the viewer becomes unreadable with twenty layers active.

1. Statutory designations: SSSI, SAC, SPA, Ramsar, NNR. Check the site and a generous radius around it, because effects on these can arise well beyond the boundary.
2. SSSI Impact Risk Zones. This is the layer that tells you whether Natural England must be consulted on your development type, and it extends far outside the SSSI itself.
3. Ancient Woodland Inventory, with the buffer in mind rather than drawn.
4. Priority Habitat Inventory, which flags habitats of principal importance and is the trigger for a closer ecological look.
5. National Landscapes and National Parks boundaries.
6. Agricultural Land Classification, provisional and post-1988 detailed surveys, if any part of the site is undeveloped land.
7. Countryside Stewardship and other agri-environment agreement boundaries, which matter on farmland because an agreement can constrain what you can lawfully do with the land.

Then use the identify tool on the site itself. Clicking a point returns a list of every active layer intersecting it, which is quicker and more reliable than reading colour fills against a legend.

Where any of these come back positive, a Preliminary Ecological Appraisal is usually the next step rather than a direct jump to species surveys.

Reading buffers and risk zones correctly

Three layers are routinely misread.

SSSI Impact Risk Zones are not a buffer around the SSSI. They are development-type specific zones, and the table behind them lists which categories of development trigger consultation. A site can sit two kilometres from the SSSI and still be inside the relevant zone for, say, discharges to water or for residential development of a given size. Read the attribute text rather than the shading.

The Ancient Woodland Inventory has a minimum mapped size, so small ancient woods and individual veteran trees may be absent entirely. Absence from the inventory is not evidence that a wood is not ancient. Check historic mapping and, on site, the ground flora and boundary features. Our note on historic maps as former land use evidence covers the map sequence to work through.

The Agricultural Land Classification layer is the one that causes real trouble. The provisional dataset was mapped at a scale intended for regional planning, not for individual fields, so it cannot tell you whether a specific parcel is best and most versatile land. Where the answer matters, and it does wherever a scheme takes agricultural land, commission an Agricultural Land Classification survey with soil pits rather than quoting the provisional grade.

Exporting a view you can put in a report

The viewer will produce a printable map and a location report. Both are usable as figures if you set them up properly.

Set the scale so the site fills a sensible proportion of the frame and the surrounding context is visible. Keep the scale bar and north arrow. Turn off layers you are not discussing, because a figure carrying eleven overlapping fills communicates nothing. Produce one figure per constraint theme rather than one composite, so ecology, landscape and soils each get a legible plate.

Then label the site boundary yourself in whatever drawing software you use. A red line drawn over the export, with the figure number and layer name in the caption, is the difference between a figure a case officer can rely on and a screenshot.

Keep the raw export as well as the annotated version. If a boundary is later disputed, you want the unedited file with its date.

Recording the layer, the version and the date

This is the step that separates evidence from decoration. For every layer you rely on, record the dataset name as published, the publishing body, the version or publication date shown in the layer metadata, and the date you accessed it.

A single table at the front of the constraints section does the job:

Datasets are revised. A designation notified after your search date is defensible if you have dated the search. Without a date it is entirely your problem. Refresh the table before submission if more than a few months have passed, and refresh it again before an appeal.

Cross-checking against the council's own mapping

The council's adopted policies map is the authoritative source for anything the plan designates, and it can differ from national datasets in ways that matter. Local Wildlife Sites, Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation, local green space, green corridors and locally designated landscape areas usually appear only there.

Where the two disagree on a boundary, the plan governs the policy test even if the national dataset is more recent. Raise the discrepancy in the submission rather than quietly picking the version that suits you, because the case officer will be working from the council's layer and an unexplained difference reads as carelessness.

Local environmental records centres are the other cross-check. They hold species records that never reach national layers, and most authorities expect an ecological report to include a data search from the relevant records centre alongside the desk study.

Where to go for the layers MAGIC lacks

Build the rest of the constraints list from the primary sources. Flood Zones and the flood risk from surface water come from the Environment Agency's flood map for planning, and anything in Zone 2 or 3 points towards a Flood Risk Assessment. Designated heritage assets come from the National Heritage List for England. Green Belt, conservation areas, Article 4 directions, listed building extents and many local designations are published as datasets on planning.data.gov.uk, which is now the quickest way to pull a machine-readable list.

Public rights of way are the outlier. They are recorded on the definitive map held by the surveying authority, and the online layers councils publish are for information only, which is why the position on the ground and the position on the plan sometimes differ. Our note on definitive map data for public rights of way sets out how to check properly.

Finish the exercise with a one-page list of every constraint found, every constraint checked and not found, and every dataset that could not be checked. The third column is the one reviewers value, because it tells them where the residual risk sits.

PlanScope runs its own automatic checks against Environment Agency flood data, Historic England listed buildings and conservation areas and Natural England SSSI layers when you enter a postcode, and it flags missing site facts as to be confirmed rather than filling them in. This is general guidance rather than legal advice, so 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.