Employment land reviews: guidance note

The primary purpose of this guide is to provide planning authorities with effective tools with which to assess the demand for and supply of land for employment. In particular, sites allocated for employment need to reflect the changing requirements of businesses and local economies.

This guide will help authorities assess the suitability of sites for employment development, safeguard the best sites in the face of competition from other higher value uses and help identify those which are no longer suitable for employment development which should be made available for other uses.

The specific objectives of this guide are to help planning authorities to:

1. assess the future demand for employment land (at the regional down to the local level);
2. assess the future supply of sites for employment (at the local up to the regional level);
3. assess the suitability of individual sites, whether existing, permitted or proposed for future employment uses;
4. identify sites which are clearly unlikely to be required by the market or are now unsustainable for employment development;
5. develop appropriate future policies and proposals in regional spatial strategies (RSS), but more particularly, in local development frameworks (LDFs), both in development plan documents (DPDs) and supplementary planning documents (SPDs); and
6. improve systems for monitoring outcomes and reviewing employment policies and programmes.

View the document here.