Yeomans Cottage Mill Street Polstead Colchester Suffolk CO6 5AD Data via plota.co.uk

Listed building consent is needed for work that affects the special interest of a listed building, inside or out, on top of planning permission. Setting can be a consideration for buildings nearby; there is no fixed radius.

Previously an area of outstanding natural beauty, which is still the designation in law. Since 2023 authorities must seek to further its purpose, not merely have regard to it.

The council must give weight to preserving or enhancing the area's character and appearance. Not every council has published its boundaries as open data.

The Environment Agency flood map for planning. Councils use it to decide when a flood risk assessment and the sequential test are needed. It is indicative and does not show whether a particular property will flood.

Where development of farmland is needed, policy prefers poorer land over the best and most versatile (grades 1, 2 and 3a). Three sources: Natural England's post-1988 field surveys, which are definitive where they exist; the Defra predictive map for England (2025) and the Welsh Government predictive map, modelled from the soil map with 3a and 3b split; and the 1970s provisional map, which planners and other services still show, coarser and with grade 3 undivided. Where the provisional and predicted grades disagree, treat the predicted grade as the current estimate and expect an application to carry its own survey.