Strategic Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA)

How are SHELAA sites assessed?

Sites are assessed according to suitability, availability and achievability and are separated into three categories:

• Deliverable - development should be delivered within 1-5 years (coloured green on the Parish Report maps)
• Developable - reasonable prospect of development within 6-10 or 11-15 years (coloured yellow on the Parish Report maps)
• Not Currently Developable - if it is unknown when a site could become suitable, available or viably developed.

Excluded sites

Sites will be excluded from the assessment if they fall exclusively within the following specific environmental/historical categories:

• Sites of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSI)
• Special Protection Areas (SPAs)
• Scheduled Monuments
• Registered  Parks and Gardens
• RAMSAR sites (a type of protected wetland site)

Only sites with a potential yield of 5 or more dwellings, or 0.25ha (or 500m2 of floor space) for economic development, are included in the SHELAA. Sites may also be excluded from the SHELAA following development, or if they are clearly no longer available and located in isolated rural locations.

How often is SHELAA updated?

The SHELAA is a living document which is updated regularly and published as and when circumstances require. All SHELAA sites are reviewed prior the next annual SHELAA publication.

Should any further information be submitted which would change the status of a site following the publication of this SHELAA report, it will be saved on file and used to reassess the sites, when the SHELAA is next reviewed.

Each published report has a base date and the findings are a snap-shot of information held in the SHELAA database at this time. It is therefore likely that some of the information presented in a published report has changed since publication. For example, sites that are identified as not having planning permission may have secured permission since the information was compiled and published. Similarly, planning permission may have lapsed on other sites.

The information that accompanies the SHELAA is based on information that was available at the time of the assessment. There may therefore be additional constraints on some sites that were not identified as part of the study. Likewise, some of the identified constraints may have been removed since the information was compiled. Applicants are therefore advised to carry out their own analysis of sites to identify any constraints or other information for the purpose of a planning application and not rely solely on the findings of the SHELAA.