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 most sites submitted through the SHELAA, we will not select them for development as they will not be suitable, achievable or deliverable.
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.
To identify available land for all types of use, we held a call for sites in:
- January 2021 through to October 2022
- January 2020 through to December 2020
- November 2018 through to December 2019
- spring 2018, alongside the Pre-Submission Consultation
- spring 2017, alongside the Preferred Options Consultation
- winter 2015/16, alongside the new Local Plan Issues and Options consultation
- winter 2014
Following each call for sites, we published an annual report.
The annual reports do not allocate sites for development. However, they do provide information that we use to prepare our adopted Local Plan and will use in forthcoming Local Plan reviews.
We have broken down the report into several different documents, to make it easier to understand. The documents explain our methodology and assessment criteria, and include our assessments of the sites we received.
The report was approved by Chelmsford Policy Board in June 2023.
Our interactive map shows the sites that we have assessed in the latest SHELAA.
You can search for individual addresses and also SHELAA site references. You can find the SHELAA references (such as CFS23) at the top of the site performance summary sheets.
To search for:
- an address, use the search bar at the top of the page
- a SHELAA reference, select the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the page, then type the reference into the search bar that appears
You can zoom in and out using the plus (+) and minus (–) buttons, or by using the wheel on your mouse.
To move around the map, hold left click and drag.
To add map layers, select the icon at the bottom that looks like a stacked sheet of paper. Select from the list which layers you would like to see.
You can also print extracts of the map. Zoom to an area you are interested in and add the layers you would like. Select the icon at the bottom of the page that looks like a printer and choose your print preferences.