Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment

To inform our Draft Island Planning Strategy, we produce a Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) in line with National Planning Practice Guidance.

The SHLAA is a technical exercise and does not allocate land for development. It examines the extent to which possible sites, including those suggested by developers, landowners and other parties are suitable, available, and achievable over a given timeframe.

It is not an identification of:

  • Planning applications which have already been made, or about which there has been pre-application discussion between landowners or their agents and ourselves.
  • Planning applications that may be made subsequently.

Appropriate sites may be considered for allocation in the emerging Island Planning Strategy. The inclusion of a site within the SHLAA should not be taken that a site will be allocated for housing or that it would definitely get planning permission.

2018 report

The 2018 strategic housing land availability assessment is a comprehensive assessment of all sites that were submitted or resubmitted. This was done as part of our call for sites that was carried out during October to December 2017. It provides a snapshot of the potential supply of deliverable and developable housing sites across the Island.

All sites put forward in this process have been assessed using our SHLAA methodology. They were considered by a steering group of senior council planning officers before being reviewed by a SHLAA panel consisting of industry professionals and councillors. We then considered the overall assessment of a site before determining whether it is deliverable, can be developed, cannot currently be developed or currently not suitable.

View our 2018 documents:

Previous SHLAA

Find below reports or updates for previous years:

Call for potential sites

We will undertake periodic reviews of the SHLAA and Brownfield Land Register. If you wish to submit a potential site for assessment, please follow the application process:

  • Complete the application form.
  • we will need information about the potential site to enable it to be assessed.
  • A completed form should be accompanied by a map or aerial photograph clearly showing the site’s boundaries.
  • A separate form and map are required for each site being submitted.
  • Anyone can submit a site for consideration on the condition that contact details are provided.
  • Anonymous proposals will not be accepted, as we will need to be able to contact you in the future.
  • Sites do not need to be in your ownership but should be available.

Where it is not possible to complete a form in full or you are unsure whether the above criteria would be met, you can email planning.policy@iow.gov.uk.