Sites pathfinders

Publish your sites data

This guidance is to help pathfinder local planning authorities publish a list of development sites in a standardised format.

If you use a Geographic information system (GIS) service for your sites data, please provide the data in a .geojson file. We’re able to quickly process this type of data using our pipeline tool. Alternatively, the data can also be submitted in .csv or .xls file formats where we are also able to link to the shapefiles.

The shapefile and .geojson file will give us geographical sites data which has the potential to be plotted onto a map.

Publicly available local authority sites data would provide an overall picture of sites in a given area including those that are suitable for future development. With easily accessible data, it can be used by government, local authorities, PropTech and others to develop services, tools and for decision making.

What information do you need to provide for your sites data?

Site reference

A unique number or code used to identify the site. This reference should be unique within your organisation, for example, D1A02. If a reference code has been used for a different site or other geographical area in the past, please add numbers or letters to the code to distinguish it from the previous site or area.

Site name

The name of the site. This will be the name that users see and refer to, for example, Regis Road.

Shapefile / site boundary

The shapefile represents geographical data stored in shapes like lines, polygons and points. If a shapefile or data on a site boundary is available please provide this.

Start date

The date the site area was added. Use the YYYY-MM-DD for dates, for example, 1982-07-26.

URL which gives information about the site

If a URL is available for the site, please provide it.

Site category

We are interested in how you categorise sites. This will help us learn whether a standard categorisation of sites is possible. A site can have many categories.