Is My Land in the Local Plan or the SHLAA? How to Check and What It Means

1. Start with the right council. The local plan for housing is written by the council that decides planning applications where your land is. Its planning policy pages hold the adopted plan, any new plan in preparation, and an evidence library with the studies behind them.
2. Open the adopted policies map. The law lists each policies map for an area as part of its development plan. Most councils publish it as an online map you can zoom into. Find your field and look at the key: an allocated site is shown with an outline and a policy reference, which leads you to the written policy for that site in the plan.
3. Check whether a new plan is being prepared. A draft plan has its own map. Under the regulations for the new system, every council preparing a plan must publish a "map of proposed local plan policies", based on an Ordnance Survey map, with a key explaining its symbols. Older-style drafts call their maps by other names, but they work the same way.
4. Find the land availability assessment. Search the evidence library for SHLAA, HELAA, SHELAA or "land availability". Government guidance expects it to contain a list of every site considered, cross-referenced to maps. Councils usually group the maps by parish or settlement. Find the map that covers your land, note the site reference printed on it, then look that reference up in the site-by-site summaries, which are often in an appendix.
5. Search the brownfield land register if your land is a yard, a former commercial site or other previously developed land. Each council keeps its own, and the government gathers them on its Planning Data platform, which can be viewed on a map.
6. Check the neighbourhood plan, if your parish has one. A made neighbourhood plan is part of the development plan too, and some allocate small sites.

The policies map also shows other lines, such as settlement boundaries, Green Belt and protected landscapes. What a settlement boundary means for land just outside it is covered in our guide to the NPPF 2026; this guide stays with allocations and assessments.

Each rung up this ladder makes a later planning permission more likely, and that is all a status says about value. The figure for one particular field rests on its constraints, its access and the number of homes it could take, which our page on how the price for your land is worked out walks through.

It means the council has looked at your land as a possible source of future homes, and nothing more. The Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment, or SHLAA, is the council's survey of land that might be developed. Many councils now call it a Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (HELAA) because it covers land for jobs as well as homes, and some add "Strategic" to make SHELAA. They are the same kind of document.

The government's planning practice guidance describes the assessment's job as finding a future supply of land that is suitable, available and achievable, and in the same opening passage warns that it does not, by itself, decide whether any site should be allocated. It is evidence. The choice of which sites to allocate is made later, in the plan itself.

The guidance suggests councils consider sites capable of delivering five or more homes, and economic sites of 0.25 hectares or 500 square metres of floor space and above, though each council may set its own threshold. A paddock that could take three homes may simply fall below the line. Each site is then judged on three questions, set out in paragraphs 018 to 020 of the guidance.

• Suitable. Would the land be an appropriate location for development, judged against its constraints and whether they could be overcome? The council weighs national and local policy, market attractiveness, regeneration, and the effect on landscape, nature and heritage.
• Available. On the best information available, confirmed through the call for sites, information from landowners and legal searches, is there confidence that there are no legal or ownership impediments? Land controlled by a developer or landowner who has expressed an intention to develop may be considered available. The guidance lists unresolved multiple ownerships, ransom strips, tenancies and a landowner's own operational needs as the kind of problems that count against it.
• Achievable. Is there a reasonable prospect that the development will actually happen at a particular time? This is mainly a judgement about viability, meaning whether the scheme would pay for itself, and whether a developer could build and sell the homes.

Two details in the guidance help owners read their entry fairly. First, councils are told not to rule out sites outright just because they have known constraints; the early desk review is meant to record the constraints, not throw the land away. Second, where a site is discounted, the published assessment should give the evidence justifying the reasons. So if your land was rejected, the document should tell you why.

For councils working under the new system, the government's stage 2 guidance on assessing sites adds an overall red, amber or green score. Green means "this site is a strong candidate for allocation in your local plan"; amber means it is a candidate "but has a number of constraints"; red means the site is not a candidate for allocation at that point. The guidance ties each score to the time of the assessment, so it is a judgement at one moment, not a permanent label.

The glossary then draws a line that surprises many owners. Small sites with planning permission, and all sites with detailed permission, count as deliverable until the permission expires unless there is clear evidence otherwise. But where a site has outline permission for major development, has been allocated in a development plan, has permission in principle or is on a brownfield land register, it should only be considered deliverable where there is clear evidence that homes will be built on the site within five years.

In other words, even an allocation does not count towards a council's five-year supply on its own. Someone has to show that the land is genuinely coming forward: an owner who is willing, a party committed to the planning work, and a realistic timetable. That is why an owner's confirmation that the land is available carries so much weight in these documents, and why an entry can move from deliverable to developable without anything changing on the ground.

The brownfield land register writes a similar test into law. Under the 2017 regulations that created the registers, land is available where the owner, or every owner if there are several, or a developer has expressed an intention to sell or develop it, or where the council sees no ownership or other legal impediment. It is achievable if development is likely within 15 years of the date the land is entered.

The document is the West Oxfordshire Local Plan 2043 Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment, an interim report of the council's assessment as of October 2025, prepared as evidence for the Local Plan 2043. It replaces the council's 2016 SHLAA. Its site-by-site summaries and maps are in Appendix 1, a matrix of constraints in Appendix 2, and the method in Appendix 3. Many of the newer sites came in through the council's call for sites in 2023.

Each site has a reference made of a settlement code and a number, such as ALV 001 for a site near Alvescot or AST 004 at Aston, with a letter added where a site has been split, as in BUR 002a. Each entry gives a site name, area, an indicative number of homes, a rating of SUITABLE, SUITABLE IN PART or NOT SUITABLE for housing, and a short commentary from the officer who assessed it. The report states plainly that "the HELAA does not make any formal land allocations" and describes itself as an informal assessment of potential suitability.

Read that way, a rating of suitable is where the questions start, not where they end. Every point in the second half of the entry needs evidence before an application could succeed. The entry also records the permission next door, because what has already been approved around a site is part of the picture the officer weighs.

ALV 001, Land south of Alvescot Road, shows the other side. It is 10.4 hectares with an indicative capacity of 218 homes, which is the same arithmetic at 60% and 35 homes per hectare. It is rated NOT SUITABLE because the site "is disjointed from Carterton and relates poorly to the existing settlement" and would lead to "sporadic isolated development that would be out of character with the surrounding open countryside". The lesson is that the capacity figure is a calculation printed for every site, including those the council rejects. It is never a promise of homes.

The report also explains its first sift. Any site lying wholly within a nationally or internationally protected wildlife site, ancient woodland, a scheduled monument, a registered park and garden or a Local Green Space, or with more than half its area in Flood Zone 3b, the functional floodplain, was treated as unsuitable straight away. Our page on land and planning across Oxfordshire explains where West Oxfordshire's plan has reached.

A draft allocation means the council proposes your land for homes in a plan it has not yet adopted. It counts for something in planning decisions straight away, but less than an adopted allocation, and the amount depends on how far the plan has gone. The August 2026 NPPF, in decision-making policy DM4.1, says relevant policies in emerging plans may be given weight according to three things:

• The stage the plan has reached. "The more advanced its preparation, the greater the weight that may be given." An early consultation draft carries little; a plan that has been examined carries a great deal.
• Unresolved objections. The less significant the objections still standing against a policy, the greater its weight. A draft allocation that has drawn a heavy, unanswered objection from a statutory body is weaker than one with only general local opposition that has been answered.
• Consistency with national policy. The closer the emerging policy is to the plan-making policies in the Framework, the more weight it can be given.

The same chapter deals with the opposite worry: that an application might be refused because a plan is still being written. Policy DM4.2 says proposals should not be refused as premature other than in limited circumstances, where the scheme is so substantial, alone or with others, that granting it would undermine the plan by settling the scale, location or phasing of growth central to the emerging plan, and the plan is at an advanced stage. A refusal on these grounds must explain clearly how granting permission would prejudice the plan.

Under the new system, the full draft is called the proposed local plan. Regulation 27 of the 2026 regulations requires it to be published with the map of proposed local plan policies and a document setting out the evidence gathered, with at least eight weeks for representations. Plans still finishing under the older 2012 rules use different names: early drafts are often described as the Regulation 18 stage, and the version published just before submission for examination is made under regulation 19, headed "Publication of a local plan".

Planning permission is a decision on a specific application. An allocation is a policy that guides that decision. The link between them is section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004: where regard is to be had to the development plan, the determination must be made in accordance with the plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Since 25 March 2026, section 38 lists the development plan for an area in England as its spatial development strategies, local plans, minerals and waste plans, supplementary plans, made neighbourhood plans and policies maps.

So an allocation gives an application on that land a strong starting point, because the plan supports homes there. But someone still has to apply, with a layout, an access design, drainage, ecology and the other reports the council needs, and the allocation's own policy may set requirements of its own, such as a number of homes, open space or a new junction. A badly designed scheme on an allocated site can still be refused.

An assessment entry is a step further back. The SHLAA or HELAA is evidence the council uses to choose its allocations; it is not part of the development plan at all. West Oxfordshire's word for it, an informal assessment, is accurate for every council.

Permission in principle is the one exception worth knowing. The government's brownfield land register guidance says sites entered in Part 2 are granted permission in principle. That settles the principle of homes on the land, but the NPPF glossary still treats such a site as deliverable only where there is clear evidence of homes within five years. Councils must review their registers at least once a year, so an entry can be added or removed. Our brownfield and yards page explains which land counts as previously developed.

The Planning Inspectorate first published its procedural guide for examinations and gateways under the 2026 regulations on 18 June 2026, describing it as a first edition. It sets out what happens to sites at the hearings.

1. The allocated sites are tested. Where a plan allocates sites, the hearings will usually discuss the soundness of the allocated sites and the method by which they were chosen. This is where objectors argue a site should go, and where the evidence behind it is examined.
2. Omission sites are not normally debated. The guide says the merits of sites not allocated in the submitted plan, "known as 'omission sites'", will not normally be discussed, because the focus is on the soundness of the plan as submitted.
3. The exception is a shortfall. Alternative sites may be discussed in exceptional circumstances, for example where the housing land in the plan falls below the area's identified need. Then the inspector may want to know whether more land is available and suitable for allocation.
4. Changes are limited to soundness. The inspector can recommend main modifications only where they are needed to make the plan sound, and has no power to recommend other changes, even if they would improve the plan.
5. Modifications are consulted on. All proposed main modifications must go out to public consultation, normally for no more than four weeks, and through environmental and habitats regulations assessment where needed, before the inspector can recommend them. If they would add sites that were not in the submitted plan, the inspector may ask the council to assess and consult on those sites separately first.
6. Timing. The government expects examinations to take no longer than six months. An inspector can pause an examination for further work, for up to six months under the regulations.

Anyone who made representations on the plan must be given the chance to appear and be heard if they ask to; others may attend and observe but have no right to speak. For an owner, the practical meaning is simple. An allocation can still be lost until the day of adoption, and land left out of the submitted plan has a narrow door at examination, open mainly where the plan is short of homes. The time to have land considered is before the plan is submitted; our guide on putting land forward in a call for sites explains the steps.

Government guidance points councils firmly away from throwing land out lightly. The stage 2 guidance for the new system says councils should only rule out sites at the first sift where they are confident development would be wholly inappropriate, and should not rule out sites simply because a constraint or designation exists. After scoring, sites should only be discounted where the council can clearly evidence that they are unsuitable, unavailable or unachievable, and the council has to explain and justify those decisions in its evidence for examination.

Reasons fall into a few broad kinds, and they behave differently over time.

A rejection does not close every door. Outside the plan, policy S5 of the August 2026 NPPF supports homes where unmet need is evidenced, on land physically well related to an existing settlement whose roads, drainage and services can take them. Inside it, each new plan brings a fresh call for sites and a fresh assessment, so land rejected in one round is looked at again in the next.

The Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2026 were made on 3 March 2026, laid before Parliament on 4 March and came into force on 25 March 2026. Regulation 90 revoked the 2012 plan-making regulations, and a note to it records that a separate commencement order, SI 2026/169, keeps the old rules for certain plans already under way, which is how well-advanced plans can finish under them. The government's rollout guidance sets the key dates.

• Thirty months. A council is expected to prepare its plan within 30 months of publishing its Gateway 1 self-assessment, which marks the start of the timetable.
• A deadline for the old system. The guidance set 31 December 2026 as the deadline for councils finishing a plan under the old rules to submit it for examination.
• A first group of 39 councils. They were required to publish a notice of intention to start a plan by 30 June 2026, and the guidance set 31 October 2026 for their Gateway 1 self-assessments.
• Everyone else. For a council not submitting under the old system, the guidance set the deadline for giving notice that it is starting a new plan as 31 December 2026, or the date its adopted plan turns four years and eight months old, whichever is later. The guidance describes these as the very latest dates and encourages councils to start sooner.
• A published timetable. Under regulation 8, each council must publish its local plan timetable no later than its notice that it is starting a plan, so the consultation dates are public from the outset.

The timetable also tells you when a draft plan starts to count for much. Policy DM4.2 of the NPPF says an emerging local plan is unlikely to be at an advanced stage until it has been submitted for examination, and only an advanced plan can justify refusing other schemes as premature. Under the new system that point comes after the third gateway check and submission, so an early draft allocation is a promising sign rather than a protected position. Our guide to how long planning takes explains what follows adoption.

• Is your land inside an outline on the adopted policies map? If so, note the policy reference and read the policy's requirements.
• Is your council preparing a new plan, and has it published a draft map or proposed plan? Look for your land on it.
• Is your land in the latest SHLAA, HELAA or SHELAA? Note its site reference, rating, indicative capacity and the reasons given.
• Does the entry call the land deliverable, developable or neither, and why?
• Does the entry record anything about availability that only the owners can answer, such as unknown intentions or several owners?
• Is the land on the brownfield land register, and in which part?
• Has your parish made a neighbourhood plan, and does it allocate sites or designate Local Green Space?
• What does the council's published timetable say about its next consultation?

You do not have to do this yourself. Our first look at your land is a desktop review of publicly available information, and we do not contact the council, your neighbours or anyone else about your land without your agreement. Which planning route we recommend, an application or putting the land forward through the local plan, depends on where the council is with its plan and how well it is delivering homes, and we explain the reasoning to you before anything is submitted.

Under our agreements, putting the land forward through the council's call for sites and local plan consultations is part of the work we take off your hands, at our own cost and risk, and we keep you informed at every consultation, committee meeting and decision. If permission is not achieved, you keep your land and owe nothing. A free desktop review of your land will tell you where it stands in your council's documents and what that means.