What is the Call for Sites?
The 'Call for Sites' is an early opportunity for individuals, landowners and developers to suggest sites within the borough for development over the next 15-20 years. The site suggestions received by us will be used to inform the preparation of the District’s emerging Local Plan, which will guide development in Rochford District up to 2040. In 2017/18, the Council previously issued a ‘Call for Sites’ in order to gather information from landowners and developers about the potential availability of land – particularly brownfield/previously developed land – that might be considered suitable for development including for meeting housing, employment, retail and other uses in the future. Any sites received through the Call for Sites prior to March 2017 were assessed within the Strategic Housing and Employment Land Availability Assessment 2017 or ‘SHELAA’ (see below for more details)
These sites, along with any further sites received after March 2017 will all be considered for their suitability and availability for future development, which will help to inform the Council’s spatial development options in its new Local Plan. However, there is no guarantee that any site put forward through the Call for Sites will ultimately be developed, given constraints such as flood risk, environmental sensitivity, infrastructure capacity etc.
Please note that the Call for Sites window closed in April 2018, and is not currently open for new submissions.
What happens next?
All of the sites put forward will be assessed for their suitability, availability and achievability for future development in due course. This includes considering whether the site is sustainably located, the presence of any constraints, and whether the site could be viably developed. It is important to note that any assessment undertaken by the Council at this stage does not allocate sites nor guarantee a site will become allocated in the future. It would be for the Council’s new Local Plan to allocate sites for meet future development needs.
For details on how sites which have been submitted are being assessed for consideration in the new Local Plan, please refer to the Council’s page on current and past consultations (see Related Content).
Where can I see past site assessments?
Over the last 15 years, the Council has undertaken multiple Strategic Housing and Employment Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA, formerly SHLAA). The purpose of the SHELAA is to evaluate the suitability and availability of land for housing or business use within the Rochford District over the next 10 years and, where possible, 11-15 years. The SHELAA identifies potential sites that could deliver future development and, in the case of housing, will consider how many homes could be delivered on each site and when. The SHELAA does not itself set policy and does not allocate land for development. It forms a key part of the evidence used to support the delivery of enough land for housing or business use in the long term.
The SHLAA is not a one-off study; it is updated periodically and an annual review of the list of sites included in the most recent SHLAA has been incorporated in each successive Authority (formerly Annual) Monitoring Report (AMR). Three previous SHLAAs have been produced to assess the availability of land for housing in the District; in 2009, 2012 and 2017. These SHLAAs can be downloaded below:
Contact Us
If you need more information on the Call for Sites or the SHELAA, please contact the Planning Policy team using this form.