Sourced, dated, and left as published.
An evaluation is only useful if the reader can see where every figure came from and what was done to it. Three rules govern the work, and they are the reason it can be cited.
- Rule 1 — provenance
- No entry exists without a source document and the date of the position it states. Where an authority publishes a figure without a date, the entry records the publication date of the document and says which it is.
- Rule 2 — no silent correction
- Published figures are recorded as published, including where they do not reconcile. Discrepancies are flagged in a note against the entry. The record does not substitute its own arithmetic for the authority's without saying so.
- Rule 3 — separation of fact and argument
- Recorded fields are fact. Commentary is identified as commentary, carries the date it was written, and is never folded back into the record as though it were a figure.
Terms, used consistently.
Planning vocabulary drifts. These are the meanings used throughout the record.
- Five-year supply
- Deliverable housing land measured against the five-year requirement including buffer. A position below 5.00 years means the authority cannot demonstrate a five-year supply. The consequences of that are a matter of national policy and of the weight given by the decision-maker.
- Deliverable
- As defined in the Framework. Whether a particular site meets the definition is frequently the live issue in an appeal; the record records the authority's inclusion of it, not an endorsement.
- Buffer
- The uplift applied to the requirement. 5% in the ordinary case; 20% where there has been significant under-delivery. The buffer applied is recorded as stated by the authority.
- Housing Delivery Test
- The annual measurement of delivery against requirement, and the consequence that follows — none, action plan, 20% buffer, or the presumption.
- Position dated
- The date the recorded position speaks from, not the date the record checked it. A position of 15 April 2024 is over two years old and should be treated as such.
What the record does not do.
It does not verify the authority's own arithmetic beyond flagging discrepancies on the face of the statement. It does not test whether a site the authority counts as deliverable in fact meets the definition. It does not predict the position an Inspector will reach.
It does not replace reading the source document, and it is not a substitute for advice on a specific site. Positions move without notice; a figure is accurate only as at its stated date.
Where the figures come from.
Local planning authority five-year housing land supply statements and residential land availability reports; authority monitoring reports; Housing Delivery Test results published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; call for sites and SHLAA/HELAA publications; adopted and emerging local plans and neighbourhood plans; and appeal decisions issued by the Planning Inspectorate.
Every figure is cited to the document it was taken from, by title and date. Where a document has been withdrawn or superseded since it was read, the figure is re-cut against the replacement and the date changes accordingly.
What is written down, and in what terms.
The same fields are recorded for every authority, in the same words, so that two districts can be read against one another without re-deriving either.
- projected_supply
- The authority's stated deliverable supply expressed in years. Below 5.00 the authority cannot demonstrate a five-year supply. Recorded to two decimal places, as published.
- required_supply
- The five-year requirement against which supply is measured, inclusive of buffer and of any shortfall the authority has chosen to address.
- anticipated_supply
- Deliverable dwellings the authority counts within the five-year period. Where this exceeds the requirement but the stated position is below five years, the discrepancy is flagged, not resolved.
- buffer
- 5% or 20%. A 20% buffer is itself evidence: it follows significant under-delivery or a Housing Delivery Test consequence.
- dpa · period_from · period_to
- Dwellings per annum and the plan period the requirement derives from. A stepped requirement is recorded step by step. A requirement drawn from a revoked plan is identified as such.
- delivery[year]
- Required against delivered, by monitoring year, with the Housing Delivery Test consequence where one applies — none, action plan, buffer, or presumption.
- consent_stage
- Full, outline, scoping request, or none, established by check of the authority's own published application record and dated to the day it was checked. A dwelling on a full permission and a dwelling on an outline are not the same asset, and are not recorded as one.
- resolution_to_notice
- Days from committee resolution to the grant of permission. Where no permission has issued, the figure is days elapsed to the check date and is marked as a period still running — a minimum, never a completed median.
- identified_capacity
- Capacity assessed in the authority's SHELAA, by settlement, against what the plan allocates there. A settlement allocated above its assessed capacity and one allocated well below are both facts on the authority's own evidence.
- source_url · supply_date
- The document the figure is drawn from and the date of the position it states. No entry exists without both.
The Framework this runs on.
The National Planning Policy Framework published on 17 August 2026 replaced the December 2024 edition. It is the first comprehensive re-write since 2012: policies are now separated into plan-making policies and national decision-making policies, the latter applying alongside the development plan from the date of publication. There is no transitional grace for an undetermined application.
For land in and around smaller settlements the operative question is Annex A. Where a development plan policy is inconsistent with a national decision-making policy it attracts very limited weight — unless the plan was examined and adopted, or the neighbourhood plan made, against the 2026 Framework. Every plan in the districts covered predates it. The comparison is policy against policy, not date against date, and it falls to be argued case by case.
The method is national.
Nothing in the four questions is particular to one district. Every measure runs on evidence each local planning authority in England already publishes: a deliverable-supply schedule, a monitoring report, a needs assessment, a site availability assessment, and a planning register.
Work to date is in the East Midlands — Harborough, Blaby, Hinckley & Bosworth, Melton, Rutland, North and West Northamptonshire and South Kesteven. The coverage is not the constraint: any authority in England can be taken to the depth of the worked district. What varies is how much of its evidence base has been published, and that is established before anything is quoted.
Contact us for pricing.
Pricing turns on how much of its evidence base an authority has published, which is established before anything is quoted. Tell us the authority and what you are trying to decide, and we will come back with a scope and a figure.