Guide to assessing development proposals on agricultural land

Publication Year

2026

Document Status

Current

Abstract

Provides guidance for local planning authorities (LPAs) for assessment of development proposals to protect agriculture land from inappropriate and unsustainable development. Covers: policies to protect agricultural land and soil, LPAs: consult Natural England, LPAs: how to use agricultural land classification (ALC), how to use ALC grades, LPAs: carry out ALC assessments to support planning decisions, using ALC to support planning decisions and developers: check if the proposal for development affects agricultural land.

Document History

Last updated: 24 July 2026 - Updated predictive ALC Map for England in section 5. LPAs: carry out ALC assessments to support your planning decisions. Sourced from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-land-assess-proposals-for-development/guide-to-assessing-development-proposals-on-agricultural-land and converted to pdf. Whilst we endeavour to capture all updates it is subject to receiving alerts from the publisher and there may be formatting or punctuation changes applied to the html version that do not affect the text. Document type: guidance. First published: 15 January 2018.

Publisher Information