Specification

Local plan

Abstract

This specification defines the format and contents which a planning authority or other party may use to provide information about one or more Local plans.

Status of this specification

Working draft

Warning It is inappropriate to cite this draft document as other than a work in progress.

This document sets out the requirements for providing data in conformance to the specification which is currently under development. Providing data to this draft specification is at present optional, though encouraged.

This is a draft specification, following the standards for planning data process [process]. The contents of this specification are currently under development, and liable to change based on feedback.

This document places no obligations on any party to provide data in conformance to this specification.

A future version of this specification may be formally published on GOV.UK, and cited as one of a number of official data standards for the provision of planning data under the proposed Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 [LURA].

This technical specification is accompanied by guidance, examples and other tools which provide feedback to organisations creating data to this specification.

Comments and feedback on this specification may be provided on the GitHub discussion or sent to digitalland@communities.gov.uk.

Version: 2.3.1 — published 2025-10-09

See versions — See changelog

Conformance

As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.

The key words MAY, MUST, NOT, and SHOULD in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals [RFC8174] as shown here.

Documentation page

Note
The documentation page is a web page intended to help a user find the data. The page SHOULD contain information about how and why the data has been published along with links to where the data may be downloaded.

The documentation page SHOULD be accessible as HTML from a public URL.

The documentation page SHOULD be owned and operated by the data provider.

Where the data provider is a local authority or other public body, the web page SHOULD be on the offical website for the organisation which is usually on a .gov.uk domain.

The documentation page MUST include:

Data

Local plan boundary

The local plan boundary data MUST be published in an open data format.

The data MUST contain at least one record for each local plan boundary.

Each local plan boundary record SHOULD contain the following fields:

  • reference — a unique identifier for the boundary the plan covers. If it covers the exact planning authority boundary then use the local planning authority boundary reference
  • name — a name for the boundary. For example, `City of York boundary`
  • geometry — the boundary in WKT format
  • description — a description of the boundary. Provide more detail if boundary is different from planning authority boundary
  • organisations — a list of codes for the responsible organisations, separated by ;
  • entry-date — the date this information has been entered as a record
  • start-date — the date the validity of the record starts
  • end-date — the date the validity of the record ends

Local plan

The local plan data MUST be published in an open data format.

The data MUST contain at least one record for each local plan.

Each local plan record SHOULD contain the following fields:

  • reference — an unique identifier for a local plan
  • name — the name of the local plan (for example, `Leeds Local Plan`)
  • description — brief description of plan
  • period-start-date — the start date of the period the plan covers
  • period-end-date — the end date of the period the plan covers
  • local-plan-boundary — the reference code for the boundary the plan covers
  • documentation-url — the web page where you can find the documentation for the plan
  • adopted-date — the date a plan is officially adopted
  • organisations — a list of CURIE references for the responsible organisations, separated by ;
  • required-dwellings — the total housing requirement (net additional dwellings) for the local plan period
  • committed-dwellings — the number of dwellings already committed for development within the local plan area
  • allocated-dwellings — the number of additional dwellings allocated to sites in the local plan
  • windfall-dwellings — the number of additional dwellings expected to be delivered from windfall developments during the local plan period
  • entry-date — the date this information has been entered as a record
  • start-date — the date the validity of the record starts
  • end-date — the date the validity of the record ends

Local plan document

The local plan document data MUST be published in an open data format.

The data MUST contain at least one record for each local plan document.

Each local plan document record SHOULD contain the following fields:

  • reference — An unique identifier for this record (for example, `document-123`)
  • name — The name of this document
  • description — Brief description of this document
  • local-plan — The reference for the particular local plan (for example, `dorcester-local-plan-23`)
  • document-types — The reference code for this document type (for example "policy-map") (See list of allowable values)
  • documentation-url — The webpage where you can find this document
  • document-url — The URL of the actual document
  • organisations — a list of codes for the responsible organisations, separated by ;
  • entry-date — the date this information has been entered as a record
  • start-date — the date the validity of the record starts
  • end-date — the date the validity of the record ends

Local plan timetable

The local plan timetable data MUST be published in an open data format.

The data MUST contain at least one record for each local plan timetable.

Each local plan timetable record SHOULD contain the following fields:

  • reference — An unique identifier for this record (for example, xyz-wquiw-309)
  • name — a human readable name for the event
  • local-plan — the reference code for a particular local plan (for example, "dorcester-new-local-plan")
  • local-plan-event — The reference code for the type of local plan event (for example "plan-adopted") (See list of allowable values)
  • event-date — The date this event happened
  • notes — Optional notes
  • organisation — The CURIE reference for the responsible organisation (for example, "local-authority-eng:BST")
  • entry-date — the date this information has been entered as a record
  • start-date — the date the validity of the record starts
  • end-date — the date the validity of the record ends

Datatypes

Date

Dates MUST conform to [ISO8601] following the Open Standards for government guidance on formatting dates and times in data [formatting-dates-and-times-in-data].

A date value SHOULD be blank if it is unknown. The date may just contain the year 'YYYY' if only the year is known, or 'YYYY-MM' if only the year and month is known.

Geometry

The boundary for the area as a single POLYGON or MULTIPOLYGON value.

In all cases all points MUST be either in the [WGS84] (EPSG::4326) or [ETRS89] (EPSG::4258) coordinate reference system following the Open Standards for government guidance on the exchange of location points [exchange-of-location-point].

Positions calculated by the WGS84 and ETRS89 systems currently deviate by less than half a metre for points within England. Boundaries provided by this dataset are intended to be used as an index. Survey data SHOULD be used where more precision is needed.

Reference

The reference identifies the entity within a data provider.

A URI for the entity may be constructed by a combination of the reference with prefix value.

A reference value MUST be suitable as the reference part of a [CURIE] identifier.

A reference MUST be unique within the dataset; it MUST NOT have been used by the data provider to identify a different entity.

A reference SHOULD be persistent. A reference SHOULD be used by the data provider to identify the same entity in the future.

The reference MAY be used in other contexts to refer to the entity. For example, the reference may be used to construct a URL to a web page with more information about the Local plan.

A reference SHOULD be short and meaningful to a user. For example, the reference may be used to refer to a Local plan when completing a form, or contacting a call centre.

Text

All text fields MUST be encoded in UTF-8 [RFC3629] following the Open Standards for government guidance on encoding characters [encoding-characters].

Historical data

Entries SHOULD be ordered by the entry-date, with older entries appearing before later entries.

The end-date field should be used to indicate when an entity is no longer applicable. Entries SHOULD NOT be removed from the data except to correct a mistake, or for the purposes of redacting personal or sensitive information.

Open data formats

Data which does not contain geospatial information (a point or geometry field) MUST be provided as (CSV).

Geospatial data MUST be provided in at least one of the following open data formats:

The preferred format for representing geospatial data is Comma Separated Value (CSV) with the geometry and point fields containing Well Known Text [WKT].

Security and privacy considerations

The data MUST NOT contain any personal or sensitive information, unless explicitly required by this specification, or legislation.

There is a risk of people's names or other personally identifiable information appearing in the data, in particular notes, description and other text fields. It is the responsibility of the data provider to review and redact such information before publication. For example, the [OGL3] licence does not cover personal data in the Information.

Colophon

This document is © Crown Copyright and available under the Open Government Licence version 3 licence.

Acknowledgements

The specification builds upon work from the local digital pathfinding local planning authorities, the Reducing Invalid Planning Applications (RIPA) and Back Office Planning System (BOPS) projects.

References

Normative references

[RFC2119]
Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels. IETF Best Current Practice. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2119
[RFC8174]
Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in [RFC2119] Key Words. IETF Best Current Practice. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8174
[RFC3629]
UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646. IETF Internet Standard. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3629
[RFC4180]
Common Format and MIME Type for Comma-Separated Values (CSV) Files. IETF Informational. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4180
[RFC7946]
The GeoJSON Format. Proposed Standard. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7946
[RFC3339]
Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps. IETF Proposed Standard. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3339
[RFC3386]
IETF Standard. Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3986
[tabular-metadata]
Metadata Vocabulary for Tabular Data. W3C Recommendation. https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/REC-tabular-metadata-20151217/
[URI-Fragment]
Section 3.5 of [RFC3986] Fragment Identifier of a URI https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3986#section-3.5
[tabular-data-model]
Model for Tabular Data and Metadata on the Web. W3C Recommendation. https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/REC-tabular-data-model-20151217
[GML]
Geography Markup Language (GML). Open Geospatial Consortium standard (ISO 19136-1:2020). https://www.ogc.org/standards/gml
[KML]
OGC KML 2.3. Open Geospatial Consortium standard (12-007r2). http://www.opengis.net/doc/IS/kml/2.3
[OGL3]
Open Government Licence for public sector information. Version 3. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
[crown-copyright]
Crown copyright. Section 163 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 as works made by officers or servants of the Crown in the course of their duties. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/re-using-public-sector-information/uk-government-licensing-framework/crown-copyright/

Informative references

[LURA]
Levelling-up and Regeneration Act. Originated in the House of Commons, Session 2022-23. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/55/enacted
[process]
Ministry for Housing, Communities & Local Government planning data standards design process (service under development). https://design.planning.data.gov.uk
[CURIE]
CURIE Syntax 1.0 A syntax for expressing Compact URIs. W3C Working Group Note. https://www.w3.org/TR/2010/NOTE-curie-20101216/
[encoding-characters]
Encoding characters Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/cross-platform-character-encoding-profile
[persistent-resolvable-identifiers]
Persistent resolvable identifiers. Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/persistent-resolvable-identifiers
[formatting-dates-and-times-in-data]
Formatting dates and times in data. Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/date-times-and-time-stamps-standard
[publishing-government-documents]
Publishing government documents. Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/viewing-government-documents
[exchange-of-location-point]
Exchange of location point. Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/exchange-of-location-point
[tabular-data-standard]
Tabular data standard. Open Standards for Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/recommended-open-standards-for-government/tabular-data-standard
[using-csv]
Using CSV file format. Central Digital and Data Office guidance. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-csv-file-format
[csv-on-the-web]
CSV on the Web: A Primer. W3C Working Group Note. https://www.w3.org/TR/tabular-data-primer/
[EPSG-4326]
WGS84 - World Geodetic System 1984, used in GPS. EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset. https://epsg.io/4326
[GDAL]
GDAL. Open Source Geospatial Foundation. https://gdal.org/
[TAB]
MapInfo TAB format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapInfo_TAB_format
[Shapefile]
ESRI Shapefile format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile
[ZIP]
ZIP format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_(file_format)
[URL]
WHATWG URL. Living Standard. Interoperability of URL with URI and IRI values. https://url.spec.whatwg.org/

Previous versions

These specifications are living documents. When we make material changes to the data structure we update the version number.

Previous versions of the local-plan specification are: