Planning Maps Explained

When you apply for planning permission, either for an extension to an existing building or as a completely new development, you are required to provide planning maps in support of your application. Each application must be supported by two planning application maps, each one at a different scale. The two maps are known as the “site plan” and the “location map”.

The purpose of the site plan is to show the relevant planning authorities what the actual site of your proposed building or development looks like. The purpose of the location map is to show the site in relation to its surroundings. So the site plan might show your house and its grounds, or a vacant lot where a supermarket is planned to rise; while the location plan would show your street, or your village – or the immediate area of the proposed supermarket.

Planning maps enable local authorities to develop sensible responses to planning applications by showing them the impact that a proposed project may have on its community, as well as on its very immediate environment. Planning application maps for a supermarket, for example, may make it obvious that there are already enough supermarkets in a given area – and therefore that to have another one would serve no real financial purpose for the community in question.

The theory behind maps for planning is very simple and straightforward. Unfortunately the process of divining what planning maps you need for any given project in any given part of the country, is less simple. That’s because different local authorities require different scales for what are effectively the same maps. So planning application maps in North Yorkshire may be required to be of x and y scales, for the site plan and location map; while the same maps, in a South London borough application, might need to be in scales a and b.

Fortunately both for the private individuals and development companies who must submit maps to their local authorities, the Internet has thrown up a solution. You can now order all of your planning maps online, which means that the site plan and location map are generated automatically according to the co ordinates of your proposed project. The scales of these planning application maps are pre-loaded into the system that drives the website you order the maps from.

Ultimately this means that you get your maps quicker, and that there’s almost no danger of them being in the wrong scales when you do get them. For individual private users, that takes a lot of the stress and hassle out of the process of filing a planning application.

For corporate or multiple application users, the process of ordering planning maps on the Internet also offers a neat solution to the problem of keeping track of multiple projects. The planning application maps provided on the Internet can be stored online too, if you opt for the multiple application scenario when you purchase your maps. These maps can also be edited, to allow for detailed representation to further support your planning permission application.