Land that fits the brief

Research

A site search built entirely from open data. It takes every registered parcel of land in a search area, tests each one against a brief and returns a shortlist with the reasons each site stayed in or dropped out, and the brief can be anything from a few homes to a wind farm or a power station.

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Map of a market town and its surroundings with flood zones, woodland, listed buildings, settlement edges and candidate land parcels shaded by constraint, the shortlisted sites highlighted in orange

What the search does

Most site searches start from what is being offered for sale, whereas this one starts from every parcel of land and lets the brief decide, whether that brief is for homes, energy or infrastructure.

Status: Research
Purpose: Find land that matches a brief, before it is offered for sale
Sector: Land for housing, energy and infrastructure
Scope: Any area of England, set by a postcode and a radius; shown here for a market town

It shows how we apply systems modelling and data integration to the first question any developer or promoter asks: where could this go?

How we went about it

The same search for homes, wind turbines or a power station

Whatever is being built, the first question is where it could go, and the search stays the same whilst the brief sets the filters.

Homes on a town edgeParcel size, distance to a station or services, flood risk, land quality, heritage and the council's housing land position.

Onshore windSeparation from homes, wind resource, landscape designations, access for large loads and distance to a grid connection.

Small modular reactorsLand area, ground conditions, cooling water, distance from population, grid capacity and transport for factory-built modules.

One brief, worked through: homes on a town edge

Each step applies one part of the brief to the open-data record, and bar heights are to scale. The shortlist still needs title checks, a planning view and a conversation with the owner.

Map of the search area: a market town, two villages and the countryside around them, with flood zones, woodland, rivers, best agricultural land, conservation areas, settlement edges, listed buildings, brownfield sites and unregistered land, and every candidate parcel shaded by constraint. The 24 shortlisted sites are bright orange. — Shortlisted site
Other candidate, no constraint found
Soft constraint, such as a conservation area or flood zone 2
Hard constraint, such as flood zone 3 or land already allocated
Flood zones 2 and 3
Woodland
Rivers and water
Best agricultural land
Conservation area
Settlement edge
Listed building
Brownfield register site
Unregistered land
Every layer comes from open data. The map is mirrored and unlabelled so the town cannot be identified.

8 unregistered patchesLand with no registered title, often the hardest to find and worth a separate enquiry

11 brownfield sitesFrom the council's brownfield register, shown alongside the open land

31 consentsUnbuilt permissions and barn conversions nearby, as evidence of what has been allowed

How the search works

Each layer comes from a public source, so that the reasoning behind every site can be traced.

LocateA postcode and a radius set the search area, its settlements and the infrastructure that matters to the brief.
ParcelsRegistered land title boundaries become the candidate sites, filtered by the size and position the brief needs.
ConstraintsGreen belt, flood zones, protected landscapes and habitats, heritage, land grade and allocations are tested against each parcel.
Site qualitiesAccess, slope and aspect from terrain data, views, ground conditions, services and the distances the brief sets.
EvidenceLocal planning history, approval rates, land prices and policy, to show the odds as well as the fit.

The result is a page with a constraint map, a scored table of parcels with grid references and the flags behind each score, and a shortlist that can be reweighted as the brief changes. Community information, such as schools and their capacity, is shown for context and is not scored.

What the search does and does not claim

It finds and ranks candidates, but it does not establish that a site is available, buildable or likely to be consented.

Open data only. Land title boundaries show where parcels are, not who owns them or on what terms. Ownership needs a title search.
Settlement edges. Where a council publishes its development limits, the search uses them. Otherwise official built-up areas stand in, and the page says so.
England first. Terrain, flood and planning-policy layers are wired for England. Gaps for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are listed with their official sources.
Not planning advice. Scores reflect the brief and the data. Local policy, site visits and professional judgement come next.

Try it with your own brief

Homes, turbines or a power station: tell us what the land has to offer and where. We can run the search and talk through what it finds.

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