Introduction

Introduction

How and why have sites been identified? 

The needs for housing, affordable housing, specialist housing, office, industry, logistics and other commercial development in Leeds up to 2042 will be met through the development of parcels of land across the District.   

A significant amount of the land that will be needed already has planning permission, or was allocated for development through the existing Site Allocations Plan. More information about these needs can be found in the housing and economic development chapters.  

To meet the remaining needs (we estimate this is around 18,000 more homes, at least 35,000 square metres (sqm) of office floorspace and over 1million sqm of industrial and logistics floorspace) additional sites will need to be found through the Plan. Potential sites to meet these needs have been identified through several sources, including: 

• The Call for Sites that asked landowners, developers and local people to suggest sites that might potentially be suitable for development;  

• An Urban Capacity Study that has looked to identify at sites within the urban area that might potentially be suitable for development, which had not already been brought to the attention of the planning department; and 

• Older existing Local Plans allocations and identified sites; there are a number of sites that were allocated through the Unitary Development Plan or were identified through earlier planning permission which were not implemented which were previously granted planning permission that have not been developed. These will need to be re-assessed to consider whether they are still suitable and deliverable locations for development.  

• Safeguarded land: this is land that is safeguarded for future development in the current plan  

Sites not assessed 

The following types of sites have not been assessed using the site assessment methodology: 

• Sites with planning permission – these have not been assessed because the suitability of these sites has already been determined through the planning process 

• Older existing Local Plan allocations and identified sites that have pending planning applications – these have not been assessed because we expect the application to be determined against the existing Local Plan and before any new policies and allocations are adopted. 

• Allocations that were made through the Site Allocations Plan or Aire Valley Leeds Area Action Plan – these have not been assessed these sites were allocated for the development in the period up to March 2028 and therefore remain suitable for development under the existing plan until that date.  We will undertake a further check on the availability and deliverability of these sites and any sites that are not likely to come forward for development before March 2028 may be reassessed under the site assessment methodology at the next stage of plan preparation. 

• Sites below 0.25 hectares in size – the proposed size threshold for plan allocations is 0.25 hectares and larger. This means that potential site options (including call for sites submissions) smaller than 0.25 hectares have been screened out and not included in the site assessments because they would not meet the size threshold for allocation. This does not necessarily mean that such sites are unsuitable for development. The suitability of a smaller sites for development would be determined through submission of a planning application and considered against all relevant policies in the Local Plan  

Next steps 

The Council will need to make choices about which sites to allocate based on their suitability, deliverability, sustainability and potential to deliver plan objectives.   

At the current stage, site assessments have only been carried out for housing, industry and commercial and minerals waste, renewables and battery storage. The Council intends to supplement this information with site assessments for G&T sites and green space subject to further evidence.  The Council may also carry out assessments of existing allocations subject to the intent of landowners.  

How to submit new sites for assessment 

Whilst over 500 potential sites have been identified and have been subject to an initial assessment, there may still be other site opportunities that have not been submitted to us for consideration so far. 

Therefore, through the consultation there is an opportunity for landowners, developers and members of the public to submit any further sites that they would like to be considered.  This can be done through the on-line consultation portal. 

Section 1 - Housing, Industrial and Commercial

Summary of the site assessment process 

Indicators and scoring approach 

To help inform these choices all sites have undergone an initial assessment. These assessments have looked at the impact that developing the site would have on a wide range of factors, such as: 

For each of these factors, each a site has been scored from +3 to -3 depending on the likely impact development would have on it.  For more detail about the approach to site assessment, see the Site Assessment Methodology document.  

Initial site rating 

Each site has been given an initial rating as follows: 

It is important to note that the site scoring methodology and initial rating are subject to consultation. This means that the initial site scores and ratings could change, for example, the boundary of a site could be amended to avoid an overlap with functional floodplain, a Site of Special Scientific Interest or ancient woodland so that a site will no longer be colour coded as red but will be scored according to its other benefits and impacts.  

We are seeking the views of site owners and promoters on whether there is potential to change boundaries. It is therefore important to tell us what you think about potential site options regardless of what their initial rating is.    

Potential site uses 

At this stage the use or uses that the site has been assessed for three broad categories of uses. These are: 

• Housing: any type of residential use 

• Industrial: includes all industrial and logistics uses (warehouses and distribution centres) 

• Commercial: other type of commercial uses including offices, retail and leisure uses 

We have not assessed sites for other potential uses such as waste processing, minerals extraction or renewable energy or green space using this approach. This is because these uses will have specific requirements, which will be factors in selecting appropriate sites, but are not considered in the site assessment scores. 

Initial overview of factors to be considered for the sites submitted for Waste, Minerals, Renewables and Battery storage are set out in section 2 of this paper. 

Site assessment report 

The report is split by the 11 plan sub-areas with a map showing the location of each site in the area. The profile for each site, set out in plan reference order, is included. This includes: 

• some general information about the site, including its address, how it was been identified and the size of the site (in hectares).  

• the scores against each of the factors identified above and adds these together to give a total score and a colour code. 

• Potential site uses  

The estimated capacity has been calculated for housing uses. This is an indication of the number of houses and/or flats that could be built on the site.  It should be noted that this is just a rough approximation at this stage based on the density requirements of the existing Local Plan. Further work will need to take place to look in more detail about how specific features on a site or in the surrounding area might influence how much development should take place on each site and take account of any changes to the density requirements made through this new Plan.  

How will it be decided which sites should come forward for development? 

After the consultation, the Council will establish new policies to support its objectives. These will cover where development should occur, what sites should be allocated to meet local needs, the design of developments, and which areas should be protected from development.   

The Council will decide where to build new housing and land for employment, by looking at several important factors: 

• Sustainability: we will try to use the most environmentally and socially sustainable sites first, based on a site assessment that considers social, environmental and economic impacts 

• Improving sites: we will consider whether a site can be made better, for example, by reducing harm, adding local benefits, or making improvements nearby 

• Local housing needs: we will start by looking at what different areas need in terms of housing 

• Overall strategy: we will weigh how each site helps - or doesn’t help - achieve the goals of the overall plan 

• Fair distribution: in areas that already have enough sustainable sites, we may still include more to help out areas with fewer sustainable options 

• Brownfield first: we will prefer to build on previously developed (brownfield) land over untouched (greenfield) land 

• Recent building: we will consider recent delivery of housing within the local areas, especially where large schemes have recently completed or are underway  

• Infrastructure impact: we will look at whether a development would help with local infrastructure (like roads, schools, or doctor’s surgeries), or make existing problems worse 

• Environmental impact: we will assess a range of environmental impacts including how close a site is to protected European nature areas and whether it would cause serious damage. 

• Flood Risk: we will carry out a flood risk assessment to understand whether sites will flood or not 

• Can it actually be built?: we will consider whether the landowner and developer are ready and able to build during the plan’s timeframe 

• Public input: we will listen to what local people say in this consultation, especially about where they think housing should go and concerns about the issues above 

• Do investors want to invest there?: we'll make sure developers' needs - like space for logistics or manufacturing - are properly considered. 

Section 2 - Waste, Minerals, Renewables, Battery Storage Uses

Summary of the site assessment process 

This report outlines an informed high-level response to sites that have been submitted for consideration for minerals and/or waste management and/or renewables and battery storage use following the Council’s ‘Call for Sites’ exercise. This, for some sites, is in addition to the site assessment exercise that has been carried out for housing and employment uses (which can be found in the Section 1), where sites have been suggested for multiple uses. 

The sites submitted for waste processing, minerals extraction or renewable energy have not been scored using the same site assessment methodology as sites for housing, industrial or commercial as these uses will have specific requirements, which will be factors in selecting appropriate sites. These factors are set out below. An initial desk-top assessment against site constraints is indicated in the site assessment sheets that follow. This work will continue alongside ongoing conversations though out the consultation with landowners/ agents/ developers. 

For wind and solar and battery storage, other locational factors such as access and capacity to connect to the grid and impacts on areas of aerodrome safeguarding areas and areas of key sensitivity to birds (migration routes and nesting sites) will also be considerations.