Call for sites, SHELAA and parish maps

We use the Strategic Housing and Employment Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) to assess sites nominated by landowners, promoters and developers. This helps us when researching and developing future Local Plans.

The presence of sites within the SHELAA does not imply that we will automatically allocate them for development, or grant them planning permission. For the vast majority of sites submitted through the SHELAA, we will not select them for development as they will not be suitable, achievable or deliverable.

Consultation

The consultation on the SHELAA Methodology and Criteria Note has now closed. We have reviewed all the comments and published a feedback report.

Current call for sites

The SHELAA is open all year round, meaning you can submit a new site or amend an existing site on a rolling basis.

You can:

submit a new site, that has not previously been included within a call for sites or SLAA submission
update or amend a site that is already on our call for sites or SLAA database (amendments can include adding or removing land, providing additional details, or changing ownership)

If you have submitted a site through the SHELAA, you can request further advice about your site with our Spatial Planning Team, for a fee.

The cut-off period for the SHELAA New Sites Submissions 2021 and SHELAA Amendments to a Submitted Site 2021 submission facilities has now passed. We are currently assessing sites submitted against these events. We will publish a report detailing the outcomes in due course.

Previous calls for sites

To identify available land for all types of use, we held a call for sites in:

winter 2014
winter 2015/16, alongside the new Local Plan Issues and Options consultation
spring 2017, alongside the Preferred Options Consultation
spring 2018, alongside the Pre-Submission Consultation
November 2018 through to December 2019
January 2020 through to December 2020
January 2021 through to October 2022

Following each call for sites, we published an annual report.

The annual report does not allocate sites for development. It does, however, provide information that we used to prepare our adopted Local Plan and will use in forthcoming Local Plan reviews.

The SHELAA 2021 annual report consists of:

SHELAA 2021 main report
Appendix 1: Criteria Note
Appendix 2: Viability Study
Appendix 3: Site Assessment
Appendix 4: Parish Maps (see parish maps section below)
Appendix 5: List of Omitted Sites

The report and appendices explain our methodology and assessment criteria, and include our assessments of the sites we received.

Some of these documents feature detailed information and are large in size. You may find it easier to download and view these documents on a desktop computer, rather than on a smartphone or tablet.

There is a map for each parish in Chelmsford.

The map shows the boundary of the parish, with the assessed sites outlined in red and highlighted in orange. If a site crosses a parish boundary, it is included on both parish maps.

To understand the maps and the site references, you need to look at the parish maps alongside Appendix 3 (Site Assessment).

The parish maps solely show the location of all assessed sites. They do not reflect any outcomes of the assessment.

Some of these documents feature detailed information and are large in size. You may find it easier to download and view these documents on a desktop computer, rather than on a smartphone or tablet.